12863889 Wonder Tales of the Ancient World

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PREFACE

The tales contained in the following chapters arepractically all that have survived of their kind inancient Egyptian literature. One or two storieshave been omitted, either because they are toofragmentary to be capable of satisfactory retelling,



or because, as in the case of the story of Wen-Amen, the narrative, though very valuable ashistory, has not much interest merely as a story ;but those who read this volume will have a fairidea of the whole extant output of Egyptianhterature in the department of fiction. The versiongiven is free in the sense that some of the cruditiesof life which the ancient Egyptian expressed in

remarkably plain language have been either omittedor expressed in accordance with more modern ideas,and that in some cases, which are all indicated,connecting links or conclusions have been suggestedwhere the existing manuscripts are defective. Inother respects the stories are told with as close

860309

vi PREFACE

adherence as possible to the ancient sources. Thestory of Osiris, of course, is a reteUing fromI'lutarch ; all the others are directly of nativeEgyptian origin. To writers such as Erman,Wiedemann, Breasted, Maspero, Petrie, and otherswho have treated of Egyptian life, religion, andliterature, this volume owes a great deal ; but mydebt is specially heavy to the Records of the Past,to Sh* Gaston Maspero's " Contes Populaires deI'Egypte Ancienne," and to Professor FlindersPetrie's " Egyptian Tales." The details of the

illustrations have been carefully kept, so far aspossible, in accordance with actual details extantfrom the various periods of Egyptian history towhich the incidents portrayed belong.

CHAPTER

CONTENTS

BOOK ITALES OF THE WIZARDS

PAOB

I. About thk Peoplk who toi.u thksk Wonder

Tales .... - 1

II. Tales oe the Old Magiciaks - - H



THE STORY OF THE WAXEX CROCODH-ETHE STORY OF ZAZAMAXKH AND THE LOSTCORONET - - - " "

III. Tales of the Old MAC.u\AS^ Co7itinual�

DEDI THE WIZARD, AND THE SUN-GOd's RABIES

IV. The Wizards of the Emi'IRE - - - 43

SETNA AND THE MAGIC ROLL - - - 47

V. The Wizards of the Emi'ire Continued�

THE TRLE STORY OF SETNA-KHAEMUAS AND HISSON SENOSIRIS . - - -

23

27

m

67

BOOK II

TALES OF TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE

VI. The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor and

THE Talking Serpent - - - 93

VII. The Adventures of Sinuhe - - - 106

VIII. How Tahuti took the Town of Joppa - 128

IX. The Doomed Prince - - - - 139

X. The Tale of the Two Brothers - - 159

vii

viii CONTENTS

BOOK IIILEGENDS OF THE GODS

CHAPTER PACK



XI. The Egyptian Gods : How Mkn rebelled

AGAINST THE SUN'-GoD - - - 183

XH. How IsiS STOLE THE GrEAT NaME OF Ra - 198

Xni. The Princess and the Demon - - 206

XIV. The Story of Osiris and his Wicked Brother 217

XV. The Wanderings of Isis - - - 239

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

from drawin(;s byCONSTANCE N. BAIKIE

1. Osiris on his Throne . - _ Frontispiece

FACING PACK

2. " So WE embarked on the Royal Barge and

came to Copi'os" - - - - 57

3. Setna restores the Roll to the Tomb - - 64

4. " The Curse of Amen, thy God, be upon thee,

Ethiopian r' - - - - - 78

5. " Our Ship went down ^ - - - - 97

6. "Behold, a Great Serpent was drawing near!"" 104

7. Then said the Crocodile to him : " I am thy

Doom, following after thee " - - 153

8. Bata goes Ploughing - - - - 160

9. Hathor (Sekhmet) and the Blood-Red Beer - 192

10. The God Khonsu flies back from Bekhten to

Egypt - - - - - - 216

11. Isis BRINGS Home the Dead Body of Osiris - 232

12. Isis and her Seven Guardian Scorpions - 241

BOOK ITALES OF THE WIZARDS



WONDER TALES OF THEANCIENT WORLD

CHAPTER I

ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO TOLD THESEWONDER TALES

Most people, I suppose, who ever trouble to thinkabout the Egyptians, think of them as a verywonderful, but at the same time a very gloomyand terribly serious people. Their great countryseems to be mainly interesting for old stones andold bones. While we think'-their great buildings,such as the Pyramids and some of the temples,very extraordinary, we wonder why in all theworld people ever were so silly as to build such

things ; and when we see their mummies, and learnwhat an amount of thought they used to giveto death, and to the life that was to come after

3

4 WONDER TALES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

death, we are rather glad, on the whole, that suchterribly serious people are all safely dead.

Most of this strange idea about these oldEgyptians has arisen from the fact that nearlyall we know about them has come from theirtombs. What sort of folk would people think usif they had nothing but our churchyards to go by ?We should like rather to be judged by our housesand our home life. But you can't do that with theEgyptians, for this reason : When an Egyptianmade a tomb for himself, he knew that it was to behis resting-place for quite a long while, and so hemade it very carefully ; but when he built a house,he said, " Well, this may please me, but I shan'tlive in it for more than a few years, and my son,

when he comes after me, may like something quitedifferent." And so he built his house very prettilyand comfortably, but very lightly, so that it wouldlast his time and not*much more. Perhaps he waswiser, after all, than we who have to go on some-times living in places we don't like at all, justbecause our fathers built them. Anyhow, that iswhy you learn most about the Egyptians from theirtombs, because the tombs have lasted far longerthan the houses.



PEOPLE WHO TOLD THESE WONDER TALES 5

Another reason for our curious idea about theEgyptians is because some of the old Greektravellers who went through the country whenGreece was very young and Egypt was getting

very old, brought home some wonderful travellers'yarns about the tremendous wisdom and seriousnessof the Egyptians. Some things they told weretrue ; and some wêre partly true, only they hadtaken them up wrong ; and some of them �well, I think the Egyptians had been playing aquiet joke off on the Greek globe-trotters, andwere laughing in their sleeves at them all thetime.

It was one of these Greeks who first told thestory which, more than anything else, has madepeople believe that the Egyptians were a gloomy,

sour, long-faced folk the story, I mean, of how�whenever a company was gathered at a feast, themodel of a mummy in its coffin was brought in,dragged round, and shown to everybody with thewords, " Look on this, and then eat and drink ; for asthis is, so shalt thou be." It sounds very unpleasantand uncomfortable, certainly. Well, perhaps theydid do that now and again, though certainly they didnot do it always, or perhaps even often ; but I am


very sure that they enjoyed their feast none theless.

For, indeed, instead of being the dark, gloomy,mysterious people that we are apt to imagine them,the Egyptians were really one of the gayest, mostlight-hearted, and most easily amused of peoples.They were very fond of music and singing, andsome of the oldest songs in all the world are thesimple old verses that the workmen used to sing attheir work the fisherman as he hauled his nets,�the farm-servant as he drove the oxen round and

round to tread out the corn. They were very fondof sports of all kinds fishing and fowling and hunt-�ing ; and when their work or their sport was done,there was nothing they liked better than a big feast,with plenty to eat and drink, with garlands of rosesto fasten on their heads, and sweet scents to fill therooms with pleasant odour, and musicians, dancers,and acrobats to keep things going cheerily.

I said that most of our knowledge of them camefrom their tombs. Well, it is from the paintings



on the walls of the tombs that all these pictures offeasting and merriment come ; and surely theycannot have been so gloomy and sour if they adornedtheir very tombs with pictures of gladness and fun


Most of the other nations of old days had most un-pleasant ideas about the other world to whichpeople go after their life here is done. The Greeksthought of it as a dim, shadowy, gloomy abode,where the ghosts of even the greatest heroeswandered miserably and aimlessly about. TheBabylonians and Assyrians called it The Landof No Return, where people live on dust andmud and dwell in darkness, and the Hebrewscalled it The Pit, and dreaded nothing so muchas going down into it. But the Egyptians' Heavenwas one of the cheeriest places you can imagine,

where the good folks who had got there ploughedand sowed and reaped the most wonderful corn,whose stalks were three yards long with ears ayard more, and sailed, fishing and fowling, in littlepapyrus canoes, over beautiful lakes and canals,and then played draughts and enjoyed a glass ofbeer under the shade of the sycamore-trees in theevening.

Now, if you want to know what people reallyare like, I fancy as good a way as any of findingout is to learn what they like to read or to be told.There are some nations in whose literature you can

scarcely imagine it possible to find a joke or even


a story that is not as solemn as a sermon. Butthe Egyptians were not like that ; they liked astory with all their hearts ; they liked it with alittle taste of the wonderful and mysterious aboutit ; they liked a joke in it, though some of theirjokes seem rather clumsy to us, as I dare say ourswould to them ; and they liked the story, if possible,

to end happily. So you will find nothing verysolemn and nothing very terrible in these wondertales. They are the simple, unaffected attempts ofjust about the first people who ever tried to makestories. No doubt the thing can be very muchbetter done now it ought to, after 5,000 years'�practice but, all the same, these stories should�be interesting to us, for they are the forerunners ofall the great race of " once upon a time," and, indeed,of all our modern novels.



How is it that these quaint old tales have comedown to our times ? You can scarcely form anyidea of how old they are. Some of them tell usof things that happened, if they ever happened atall, about 5,000 years ago. Some of them belongto much about the time when Abraham was journey-ing about in the world ; and some of them Mosesmay have heard when he was a schoolboy learning


" all the wisdom of the Egyptians." Now, I am verysure that no book of our times is likely ever to lastso long as any of these old stories have done, and sothe question is, How did they come to last like that ?You know that a great deal of the informationthat has come down to us from the days of ancientEgypt has lasted so long because it was carved instone upon the walls of some great building. The

Egyptians had a very beautiful form of writing,which IS called " hieroglyphic," or "sacred writing."It is really made up of hundreds of little pictures �an eagle for an a, a lion for an ?w, and so on.And when they had anything very importantto write, they carved it in this beautiful picture-WTiting, sometimes filling in the picture-letters withbrightly coloured pastes, so that the whole storyblazes with all sorts of colours. But that kind ofwriting was generally kept for very importantthings. There is one long poem telling of a greatbattle between the Egyptians and the Hittiteswhich is carved on the walls of a great temple

in Egypt ; but it wasn't everybody who couldafford to build a temple when he wanted to publisha poem. So most Egyptian books, and all Egyptianstory-books, were written not in the beautiful and

2


difficult hieroglyphic, but in one or other of twosimpler forms which we call "hieratic " or "demotic";

and they were written not on stone, but on papyrus.The papyrus, from which our word " paper " comes,was a reed with a long, fleshy, thick stem, whichgrew plentifully in Egypt. They used to split upthe inside of the stem into broad, thin layers, which,when pasted crosswise over one another, werestrong enough to bear writing upon.

Then the scribe, or writer, took his palette, whichhad holes for black ink and for coloured inks, andhis pens, which were really little brushes made of



reeds with their ends bruised, and painted in theletters on the papyrus, something in the same wayas a Chinaman paints his letters now. Then thepapyrus, when it was finished, was rolled together.(It might sometimes be a very long roll, for sheetwas joined to sheet as the story went on. Thereis one papyrus in the British Museum more thanone hundred and thirty feet long.) It was then

put into a case, and when the owner of it wantedto read he took it out of the case and unrolleda little of the beginning. As he went on he rolledup on the one side and unrolled on the other untilhe got to the end.


Now, these rolls of papyrus were very costly tomake, so that only rich people could afford to havethem ; and they were very easily destroyed, so that

great care had to be taken of them. And some-times they were prized so much that when theowner of the roll died he left orders for his favouriteroll or rolls to be buried in his coffin with him.And there the papyrus has lain, beside the mummyof its old owner, for hundreds upon hundreds ofyears, the desert sands drifting over them both,until some European explorer, or perhaps someArab thief, has found out the old grave, dug upthe coffin, and taken the precious papyrus out ofits old master's keeping. Some years ago a lady'sgrave was discovered, and when her coffin wasopened, they found, beneath her long, beautiful

hair, a papyrus roll with part of Homer's greatpoem, the " Iliad," written upon it.

Nearly all the stories that follow in this bookwere written on papyrus. Where some of themwere found is not known ; they were sold totourists, who sold them or gave them to someof our museums. But one way or another they allhave been dug up from under the sands of Egypt,which have preserved them safe and sound for all


these centuries. Of course, they are very brittleand fragile, and have to be very carefullyhandled ; but using them with the greatest care(for they are worth infinitely more than theirweight in gold), scholars have been able to readthem and to translate what is written on them intoEnglish and French and German, so that we allcan listen to the tales that people listened to inpalaces and cottages when the world was young.



One of the finest of these old rolls, with a longstory on it, once belonged to a Pharaoh of Egypt,Sety II., when he was Crown Prince. He livedabout twelve hundred years before Christ, and hisis by no means one of the oldest of the rolls, sothat you see how old they are.

When we come to read the stories we may look

at them in two ways. The first is the way thatonly cares for the story itself that is only anxious�to find out what happened to the Doomed Prince,or how the Shipwrecked Sailor was saved, or howthe Ghost made the Wizard Prince give back themagic roll. After all, stories are meant to be readthat way too, and nobody can blame those who liketo see their hero or heroine safely settled, and don'tcare much for anything else. And some of the


Egyptian stories are worth reading even from thatpoint of view, especially those in which we can seethe seeds from which some of our own favouritestories have sprung. We shall hear later on aboutthe old Egyptian General whose adventures gavethe first idea of the story of Ah Baba, and thesailor who was the original of Sindbad, and thePrince who has figured in the stories of nearly everycountry under the sun, sometimes as a Prince,sometimes as a Princess, but always under theshadow of the doom pronounced at birth by theFates or Fairy Godmothers.

But quite apart from the interest of the stories,we may look at them from the point of view ofwhat they tell us about the Land of Egypt itself,the people who lived in it, their manners andcustoms, what they thought and what they believed,and about the other lands and peoples which layaround Egypt. And in this respect these storiesare of extraordinary value and interest. They giveyou pictures of all kinds of Egyptian life. You seePharaoh in his palace, wearying of everything, andasking for stories to be told him, just as the Sultanin the " Arabian Nights " wearied till Scheherazade

took him in hand. You see the extraordinary


belief that the Egyptians of all periods had in thepower of magic. It appears in the very first story,the Story of the Waxen Crocodile, where youhave the absolute beginning of the strange belief,which lasted in our own country down to compara-



tively recent times, and still lasts in Italy and otherEuropean countries, that you can make waxenimages which will become alive and do harm toyour enemies, or which can represent your enemiesthemselves, so that by injuring them you can injurethe person you hate.

Rossetti's Sister Helen, who melts her waxen

man that she may have vengeance on her false lover,is first cousin to the learned scribe Uba-aner, wholived more than 5,000 years ago, and made hiswaxen crocodile to avenge himself on the manwho had wronged him. The belief in the efficacyof magic colours almost every one of the talesto the very last, in point of date, the stories ofSetna, which are the most magical of all ; and oneremembers that these last stories belong almostto the very time at which we believe that Mosesappeared at the Egyptian Court to plead for theoppressed Israelites. The scene in which the littleboy Senosiris, the reincarnation of an old Egyptian


sage, confounds the Ethiopian wizard before Pharaohand his Court, is strikingly suggestive of the scenesin the succeeding reign, when a greater power thanthat of the Ethiopian baffled the wisdom of theEgyptians, and the wizards of the Nile were forcedto confess, " This is the finger of God."

Once again you go forth with the Egyptian

explorer, first on the long roll of those who havesought to penetrate the mysteries of the DarkContinent ; and you see the strange dangers andmarvels that he believed to lie about his path �talking serpents, and vanishing islands, and youngladies who are brought to earth on the wings of athunderbolt. Or you get a glimpse into the sinisterrealm of Court intrigue, with its atmosphere of sus-picion, jealousy, and sudden death, then as now� �the natural medium in which an Oriental monarchymoves ; and you see how the exiled Egyptian,suppliant for shelter among the tribes of Palestine,nevertheless comes surely to the top wherever his

lot is cast, by virtue of his higher civilization, justas the Briton or the American takes the first placeamong the less civilized races of the earth to-day.

Stories like that of Tahuti, and the DoomedPrince, show you Egyptian sentiment in those




days, which, for Egypt, correspond most nearly withour own Elizabethan period ; the days when theland was beginning to waken to the idea of world -empire, and to reach forth her hands to thoseSyrian and Mesopotamian lands which were to bethe scene of her greatest glories and greatest over-throws. And, perhaps not least important, theplacid, peaceful, laborious life of the ordinary

Egyptian fellah, who goes his quiet way, knowinglittle and caring less of the great deeds of themighty ones of earth, is mirrored for us in theopening scenes of the Tale of the Two Brothers,with its extraordinary resemblance to the story ofJoseph, and its strange later maze of reincarnationsand wizardries.

The stories which are here narrated cover, fromfirst to last, a period of about 2,000 years ; and theyare a faithful because an entirely unstudied� �reflection of the changing manners, customs, andbeliefs of one of the most interesting peoples of the

world during two millenniums.

Scanty as the fragments may seem, there is nobody of literature extant in any other land on earthwhich, from this point of view, has a value evenremotely approaching that of these Wonder Talesof the Ancient World.

CHAPTER II

TALES OF THE OLD MAGICIANS

The three stories which follow in Chapters II.and III. are written in an old papyrus, which wasbrought back from Egypt sixty years ago by anEnglish lady, Miss Westcar. She gave it to thefamous scholar, Lepsius, and it is now in the BerlinMuseum, and is known as the A estcar Papyrus.�It is the oldest of all the books of stories whichhave come down to us, for though the legends ofthe gods in their original form must, of course,have been the oldest of all, the form in which theyare now best known is later than the WestcarPapyrus. Some scholars hold this book to have

been written about the time of the TwelfthDynasty, not less than 2,000 years before Christ,perhaps round about the time when Abraham wasliving ; and though others do not think it quite soold, all agree that it must date from before1500 B.C. But this, of course, only means that

17 3




our copy of the stories is 4,000, or at least 3,500,years old. The stories themselves are far older,just as a copy of Shakespeare's plays may bepublished this year, but contains stories whichShakespeare wrote 300 years ago, and some ofwhich were many hundred years old already when

he wrote them down in the form in which we nowhave them. Thus, these three stories are supposedto be told to King Khufu by his three sons,Khafra, Baufra, and Hordadef. Now, King Khufureigned not later than 2900 b.c, and some thinkvery much earlier. Khafra's Story of the WaxCrocodile mentions a King who reigned more thana hundred years before Khufu ; so that these talestake us very far back indeed. If Professor Petrie'sviews as to the dates of the earliest Egyptian Kingsare correct, they take us back 6,000 years, and evenif we take the shorter dates, they refer to eventsand people of about 5,000 years ago. Perhaps

1,000 years more or less scarcely matters much atthat distance.

At the very beginning of Egyptian story-tellingwe notice that extraordinary belief in and love formagic of all kinds which has already been referredto. Zadkiel and the rest of his tribe would have

TALES OF THE OLD MAGICIANS 19

made their fortunes in Egypt, for the Egj^tians

beheved with all their heart in the influence of thestars, in lucky and unlucky days, in omens of allkinds, and in the influence and significance ofdreams. On certain days it was unlucky to bathea great deprivation, for the Egyptians of those�

days were a cleanly race, though the virtue does notseem to have been transmitted to their descendants.On others it was certain that if you went in a boatyou would be devoured by a crocodile ; while the13th day of the month JMekhir was specially un-lucky, because on that day the Goddess Hathor,or Sekhmet, went forth to slay the men who hadrebelled against God a story that you will find�

later on. Some people still believe that Egyptianmagic was something very real and terrible. Hereis a famous spell from which anyone may judge itsquality. It is a spell for producing dreams whichwere supposed to convey knowledge and warningfrom the gods :

" Take a cat, black all over, and which has beenkilled ; prepare a writing-tablet, and write thefollowing with a solution of myrrh, and the dreamwhich thou desirest to be sent, and put it in the



mouth of the cat. ' Keimi ! Keimi I I am the

20 WONDER TAI.ES OF THE ANCIENT WORT,D

Great One in whose mouth rests ISIommon, T}ioth,Nanumbre, Karikha, Kenyro, Paarniiathon, the

sacred lau iee ieu aeoi who is above tlic heaven,Amekheunui, Neumana, Sennana, Ablanathaiialba,Akramni, Khamaria, brasiiia, lampsor, eieeieieiaoeeo tlieuris O.' " Then follows a lot more ofsimilar drivel, and the spell ends : " ' Thy nameanswers to the seven vowels, a, e, o, i, o, y, 6,iauoeeao oiiee oia. I named thy glorious name,the name for all needs. Put thyself in connectionwith N. N., Hidden One, God, with respect to thisname, which Apollobex also used.'" Let us hopethat N. N. got his dream, though it ought to havebeen a nightmare. The fact of the matter is thatEgyptian magic is just as sensible as printers' pie,

and just as terrible as a turnip lantern.

Khafra's story, according to Professor Petrie, waswritten by an anti-suffragist. AVomen always helda very influential position in Eg\'pt, and this storywas written to counteract their undue influence.It is the woman who is at the bottom of themischief all through the story, and she comes toa very bad end, an end so unusual for burning�alive is scarcely ever Jjeard of elsewhere in Egj-ptianstory that it is evident that her fate was meant as�


an awful warning to any of her sex who mightbe tempted to presume on their favoured positionin the land. By which it appears that the vexedquestion of women's rights is scarcely a thing ofyesterday.

The fact that when Uba-aner takes the terriblecrocodile into his hand it becomes nothing but waxagain reminds one forcibly of the story of howMoses' rod, which had been changed into a serpent,

became a rod again when laid hold of by its owner(Exod. iv. 4).

The amusement which Zazamankh the wizarddevised for King Seneferu in Prince Baufra's storywas exactly paralleled by that employed by the greatKhedive of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, to divert himin his hours of ennui. It is not on record, however,that any miracle happened during the progress ofhis voyage.



Prince Hordadef s story really contains two tales.The first, which is really only the introduction, is asimple piece of wizardry ; but the story of Rud-didetand her babies is something more. It was no doubtinvented for a political and religious purpose. TheFifth Dynasty, which succeeded that to which KingKhufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid, belonged,


was a priestly dynasty, devoted to the worship ofRa the Sun-god. It is from its rise that the Kingsof Egypt begin to take, as part of their regularstyle, the title Son of the Sun. The story, whichtells how the three babies (whose names in theoriginal are those of the first three Kings of theFifth Dynasty) are really the children of the Sun-god, was no doubt invented to explain and justifythe revolution by which the priests of lla seized the

throne, and to glorify their dynasty.

The regard which was paid to Kings and tocommon folks respectively may be seen in theofferings which King Khufu makes to the Kings,his ancestors, and to the wizards. Nebka andSeneferu get a thousand loaves and one hundredjugs of beer. Uba-aner and Zazamankh have tocontent themselves with one loaf and one jug.

TALES OF THE OLD MAGICIANS.

Once upon a time it fell out that the great KingKhufu, Lord of the Two Lands, bearer of theWhite Crown and the Red, was in his palace, andtime hung heavy on his hands. He turned to thisand that, and he knew not what to do, for the day


seemed long and weary. At last he said to hissons, the royal Princes, who were gathered about

his throne : "Is there one among you who can tellme a tale of the wizards of the olden times ?"

Then the royal son Khafra arose to speak, and hesaid : "I shall tell your Majesty the story of awonder which befell in the times of your ancestorthe King Nebka, of happy memory, on an occasionwhen he was going to the Temple of Ttah, Lordof Anklitaui.

"The Story of the Waxen Crocodile.



" Now, it fell out on a day when His Majestywent to the Temple of Ptah, Lord of Ankhtaui,that he paid a visit to the house of the learnedscribe, the first reciter, Uba-aner. Now, in thetrain of His Majesty there was a young page, ofcomely face and form, and when the wife of Uba-aner saw him, her heart was turned away from herhusband, and she loved the young man. Without

regard for her husband's welfare, she wasted hissubstance in gifts to the page, and she invited himto spend the day with her in a pavilion by the side ofthe lake in the garden of Uba-aner. There theypassed the day in eating and drinking, and when


the evening came the page bathed in the lake.Now, when the steward of tlie house of Uba-anersaw tiic falseness of his master's wife, he said to

himself: ' It is not good that such things shouldbe done, and my master know notiiing about them.'

" Therefore, when the dawn appeared, and tiiesecond day came, the steward went to Uba-anerand told him what had happened. W'^hen the firstreciter, Uba-aner, knew all, he said to his steward :' Bring me the casket of ebony, inlaid with ver-milion, which contains my book of spells.' ^Vhenthe steward had brought it, Uba-aner fashioneda waxen crocodile, seven inches long ; he recited aspell over it, and he said to it : ' When this pagecomes to bathe in my lake, then drag him to the

bottom of the water.' He gave the crocodile tothe steward, and said to him : ' AVhenever the pagegoes down to bathe in the lake, throw the waxencrocodile in after him.' Then the steward wentaway, and took the crocodile with him.

" Now, it fell out that the wife of Uba-aner sentonce more to the page, and said to him : ' Comeand let us make a good day in the pavilion by thelake-side'; and to the steward, who had chargeof the lake, she said : ' Prepare the pavilion by the


lake-side, for I am going to spend the day there.'The pavilion was prepared, and furnished with allkinds of dainties, and the lady and the page cameand passed the day in amusements. When theevening came, the page went into the lake to bathe,according to his custom, and the steward cast thewaxen crocodile into the water after him. Thecrocodile changed into a crocodile of seven cubits



long ; he seized the page, and dragged him underwater.

" Meanwhile the first reciter, Uba-aner, remainedat Court seven days with His Majesty King Nebka,Lord of Upper and Lower Egypt, while the pagelay under the water without breathing. But whenthe seven days were past, and when the King of

Upper and Lower Egypt, Nebka, of happymemory, was going to tlie temple^ the first reciter,Uba-aner, came before him and said : ' May itplease your Majesty to come and see a wonderwhich has happened in these days of your JNIajesty'sreign to a page of your royal retinue ?'

" Then His Majesty went with the first re-citer, Uba-aner. Uba-aner said to the crocodile :' Bring up the page out of the water,' and thecrocodile came forth, and brought up the page out

4


of the water. The first reciter, Uba-aner, said :* Stop !' He cast a spell upon the crocodile, andmade him stand still before the King.

" Then His Majesty, the King of Upper andLower Egypt, Nebka, of happy memory, cried :' Mercy upon us, this crocodile is dreadful I'

" Uba-aner stooped down, he seized the crocodile,and it became in his hands nothing but a crocodileof wax once more. Then the first reciter, Uba-aner, told His Majesty King Nebka, Lord ofUpper and Lower Egypt, the whole story, andhow the page and his wife had deceived him.

" His Majesty said to the crocodile : * Take whatis thine.' Then the crocodile plunged to thebottom of the lake, and what became of him andthe page no one has ever known. Then HisMajesty, of happy memory, King Nebka, Lord ofUpper and Lower Egypt, caused the wife of Uba-

aner to be led to the north side of the palace ;there they burned her alive, and threw her ashesinto the river. Behold, this is the wonder whichhappened in the days of thine ancestor of happymemory. King Nebka, Lord of Upper and LowerEgypt one of the wonders wrought by the first�reciter, Uba-aner."




Then His Majesty, King Khufu, said : *' Letthere be offered to the Majesty of the KingNebka, an offering of a thousand loaves, onehundred jugs of beer, a bullock, and two measuresof incense ; and let there be offered also to thechief reciter, Uba-aner, of whose skill I have hadproof, a loaf, a jug of beer, and a measure of in-

cense." It was done as His Majesty commanded.

Then the royal Prince Baufra rose to speak, andhe said : " I am going to tell your JMajesty of awonder which happened in the time of your father.King Seneferu, of happy memory, and which waswrought, among other wonders, by the chief re-citer Zazamankh :

" The Sxoiir gp^ Zazamankh and the LostCoronet.

" One day when King Seneferu was in his palace,

he was terribly bored with everything. Nothingseemed to please him, and he was dreadfully de-pressed. He called his household together, andasked the courtiers if they could not devise some-thing that would amuse him, and help to pass thetime. They all suggested different things, buteach bored His Majesty worse than the other.


At last the King said : ' Hasten, someone, and

bring to me the chief reciter, Zazamankh ;' andthey brought him immediately. His INIajesty saidto him : ' Zazamankh, my brother, I have calledtogether the whole royal household to see if anyof them could invent something to relieve me ofmy weariness (for my heart is very heavy) ; butnot one of them could imagine anything. '

" Then said Zazamankh : ' Let His Majestycondescend to go down to the lake of the RoyalPleasance, and let him man one of the royal bargeswith all the prettiest girls of the royal harem.Your Majesty's heart will grow light as you see

them bending to their oars, and when you admirethe beauty of the lake and its banks, and the finelawns around it. For my share in this business,behold, this is how I shall arrange the voyage.Let them bring me twenty oars of ebony, inlaidwith gold, with blades of tough wood, inlaid withvermilion, and let these twenty girls be chosenfrom among the very loveliest in the harem �young and fresh and let them be clothed in�fishing-nets.'



" All was done according to His ISlajesty's com-mand. The girls swung to their oars, back and


forward, und His Majesty's heart grew light as he

watched their rowing, when suddenly the loom ofthe steering-oar of one of the steers women struckher hair, and her coronet of new malachite fell intothe water. Then she stopped her rowing song,and ceased to steer, and her companions on thatside of the boat were silent also and ceased rowing.And His Majesty said : ' Why have you stoppedrowing V

" They said : ' Our companion has stopped herrowing song and her steering.'

" His Majesty turned to her and said : ' Why

are you not steering ?'

" She answered : ' My coronet of new malachitehas fallen into the water.'

" ' Never mind,' said His Majesty ; ' go on, andI shall give you another one just as good.'

" But she said : ' I want my own coronet, andnot another one just as good.'

" * If that is so,' said His Majesty, ' bring me thechief reciter, Zazamankh.' They brought him at

once, and His Majesty said : ' Zazamankh, mybrother, I have taken your advice, and MyMajesty's heart has rejoiced to see the rowing ofthe girls ; but, behold, the coronet of one of these

30 WONDER TALRS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

little ones has fallen into the water. She has stoppedsinging, she has stopped steering, and she haschecked all her companions on this side of the boat.I said to her: " V\'hy don't you steer?" and she

said : '* My coronet of new malachite has falleninto the water." I said to her : " Never mind, goon steering, and I shall give you another one, justas good"; but she said: '' I want my own jewel,and not another one just as good." '

" Then the chief reciter, Zazamankh, arose, andspoke wonderful words out of his magic book.Half of the water of the lake rose up, and stoodupon the other lialf The bottom of the lake wasbare ; for it was twelve cubits deep in the middle



before, and now, where it was piled up, it wastwenty-four cubits deep. Then Zazamankh leapeddown upon the dry bed of the lake ; he found thecoronet of malachite lying upon the sand ; he tookit, and gave it back to the girl. Then he reversedhis spell, and the water of the lake sank down, andwas as before. So His Majesty passed a happyday with the royal household, and he rewarded the

chief reciter, Zazamankh, with all sorts of goodthings. Behold this is the wonder which hap-pened in the days of thy father, of happy


memory, the King Seneferu, and which was wrought,among others, by the chief reciter, Zuzamankh, thewizard."

Then said His Majesty, King Khufu : " Let

there be presented to His ^lajesty, the King Sene-feru, of happy memory, an offering of one thousandloaves of bread, one hundred jugs of beer, a bullock,and two measures of incense ; and let there begiven also a loaf, a pint of beer, and a measure ofincense, to the chief reciter, Zazamankh, the wizard,of whose skill I have had proof." It was done asHis Majesty commanded.

CHAPIER III

TALES OF THE OLD MAGICIAKS Continued�

Dedi the Wizard, and the Sun-God's Babies.

Then Hordadef, the King's son, rose and said :" JNlay it please your Majesty, so far your Majestyhas heard stories of wonders which only the menof bygone days have known, and whose truth noman can swear to ; but I am able to bring beforeyour JMajesty's eyes a sorcerer of your own day,whom your Majesty does not know."

His JVlajesty said : " AVho is he, Hordadef ?"Prince Hordadef answered : '' He is a man namedDedi, who lives at Ded-sneferu. He is a hundredand ten years old, but he still eats every day hishundred loaves of bread, and a whole side of beef,and drinks a hundred jugs of beer. He knows howto join on again a head which has been cut off,he knows how to make a lion follow him without

32




a halter, and he knows the plans of the house ofThoth." (Now, behold, His INIajesty King Khufuhad long sought those plans of the house of Thoth,in order to make a copy of them for his pyramid.)

Therefore His Majesty said : " Hordadef, my son,bring the man to me yourself."

Barges were prepared for the Prince Hordadef,and he set sail for Ded-sneferu. When the boatscame to the landing-place, he sat upon a littermade of ebony, whose poles were of cedar- wood,inlaid with gold. Then, when he came to Ded-sneferu, the litter was set down, and he rose up tosalute the wizard. He found him sitting upon alow couch at the door of his house, one slave athis head, scratching it for him, and another rubbing

his feet.

Prince Hordadef said to him : " Thy state is thatof one who lives in the restful shade of old age.Commonly old age is a coming into harbour, a wrap-ping of the mummy, a return to the earth ; but,thus to rest at ease all day long, without bodily in-firmities, without decay of one's mental powers, thisis, indeed, a happy lot ! I have come in haste togive you a special invitation from my father, HisMajesty, King Khufu. You shall eat of the best

5


that the King can give and the Court provide;and, thanks to Ilis Majesty, you shall come at lastwith honour to your fathers who rest in their tombs.'

Dedi replied : *' Peace be to thee, peace be tothee, Ilordadef, royal son, beloved of his father IMay thy honourable father praise thee, may heplace thee amongst the elders ! May thy guardian

angel triumph over his enemies I and may thy soulfind out the steep paths which lead to the gate ofmercy, for verily thou art wise !"

Prince Hordadef stretched out both hands to him ;he helped him to rise, and he walked with him tothe landing-place, holding his arm. Dedi said tohim : " I would need to have a boat for my house-hold and my books." Two boats with their crewswere granted him, and Dedi himself sailed in thebarge along with the Prince Hordadef. Now, when



he had arrived at the Court, the Prince entered tomake his report to the Majesty of the King of thetwo Egypts, Khufu, and he said : " Sire (life, health,strength !), my master, I have brought Dedi."

His Majesty answered : " Bring him quickly tomy presence." And when His Majesty had seatedhimself in the audience-hall of Pharaoh, Dedi was

presented to him.


His Majesty said : " How is it, Dedi, that I havenever before seen you ?"

Dedi answered : "A man can only come whenhe is called. My King (life, health, strength !) callsme, and behold, I have come."

His Majesty said : " Is it true, as they say of you,that you can join on again a head whicli has beencut off?"

Dedi answered : " Surely it is true, sire, mymaster."

Then said His Majesty : " Bring hither a prisonerof those who are lying in prison under sentence ofdeath."

But Dedi cried : " No, no, your Majesty ; not aman. Do not let us venture such a thing upon

a human being."

So a goose was brought to him, and its head wascut off, and the goose was placed at tlie right sideof the hall and its head at the left side. Then Dedispoke words of power out of his book of spells.The goose rose up and hopped forward, the headdid the same, and when the one had joined theother, the goose stood up and cackled. Then apelican was brought, and the same thing happened.His Majesty ordered a bull to be brought, and its


head was struck off and fell to the ground with itshalter. Dedi recited his spells, and the bull stoodupright behind him, but its halter still lay upon theground.

Then said King Khufu : " Do you know thatpeople say of you that you know the plans of thehouse of Thoth ?"



Dedi answered : " Pardon me, your Majesty, Ido not know the plans themselves, but I knowwhere they are."

*' And where is that V said His Majesty.

Dedi said to him : " There is a block of grit-

stone in one of the chambers of the Library atHeliopolis, and the plans of the house of Thothare in the block."

Then said the King : " Bring me the plans whichare in this block."

But Dedi said to him : " May it please yourJMajesty, it is not I who shall bring them."

" Who, then, shall bring them to me ?"said the King.

And Dedi answered : " They shall be brought

to you by the eldest of the three children who shallbe born of Rud-didet."

*' By my faith," said His ^lajesty, " and who isshe, this Rud-didet of whom you speak ?"


Dedi answered him : " She is the wife of a priestof the god Ra, Lord of Sakhebu. She shall bearthree children, who shall be the sons of Ra, Iôrd

of Sakhebu, and the great god has said that theyshall exercise this excellent dignity over this wholeland {i.e., shall be Kings), and the eldest of themshall be also High-Priest at Heliopolis."

Then His Majesty's heart was troubled ; butDedi said to him : " Why are your thoughts sosad, sire, my master ? Is it because of these threechildren ? Verily, I tell thee it shall not happenin thy day. Thy son shall reign, then his son, andthen one of these."

Then said His Majesty : " When shall the

children be born ?"

The wizard replied : " They shall be born on thefifteenth of the month Tybi."

The King said : " If the banks of the canal ofLetopolis were cut, I would go there myself to seethe temple of Ra, Lord of Sakhebu."

And Dedi answered : " Then I will cause thatthere shall be four cubits of water between the



banks of the canal of Iêtopolis."

When His Majesty had returned into his chamber,he said: "Let Dedi be lodged in the house of Prince


Ilordadef, and let him dwell with him ; and let therebe given to him a daily ration of one thousandloaves, one hundred jugs of beer, an ox, and onehundred bunehes of onions."

It was done as His Majesty had eommanded.

* i,:- * * m

Now it eame to pass tliat the time for the birthof the children drew nigh. The Majesty of Ra,Lord of Sakhcbu, said to I sis, to Nephthys, to

Meskhent, to Heqt, and to Khnumu : '* Go andwatch over the birth of these three children ofRud-didet, who shall reign over this whole land,building your temples, furnishing your altars ofofferings, supplying your libation-tables, and addingto your endowments." Then these divinities setforth. The goddesses changed themselves intosinging-girls, and Khnumu went with them in theguise of a porter. They arrived at the house ofRa-user, and they found him spreading out linen.They passed before him with their musical instru-ments, and told him that they had come to be presentat the birth of the children. When the children

were born, beautiful in all their members, theysaid : " These are kings, who shall reign over thiswhole land of Egypt."


Then the goddesses went forth, and said toRa-user : " Rejoice, Ra-user ; for, behold, threechildren are born to thee."

He said to them : " My ladies, and what can I

do for you ? Behold, let me give this bushel ofbarley to your porter that you may carry it awayas your wages to the brew-house."

So Khnumu loaded himself with the barley, andthey set out for the place whence they had come.

But Isis said to the others : " What are wethinking about, that we have come to the houseof Ra-user without doing a wonder for thesechildren that we may tell it to their father who



has sent us ?" {i.e., to the god Ra).

Then they made three royal diadems, and hidthem in the barley ; they brought down a stormof rain from heaven. They returned to the houseof Ra-user, and they said : " Store for us thisbarley in a sealed chamber, until we come northagain."

So the grain was stored in a sealed chamber.

Now, it fell out that one day, a fortnight afterthe children were born, Rud-didet said to herservant : " Is everything in good order in thehouse ?"

40 WONDER TALES OF THE ANCIENT WOULD

Tlic servant answered : " All things are in

order ; only the barley lor brewing has not beenbrought."

Then said Itiid-didet: "Why is the brewingbarley not brought ?"

The servant said : " It might have been readylong ago, only it was given to these singing-girls,and lies in tlic chamber sealed with their seal."

So Rud-didct said : " Go down and fetch it ;Ra-user will give them more in place of it whenthey come back again."

The servant went and opened the room ; behold,she heard voices, singing, music and dancing, allthat one would do to welcome a King, in the room.She came back and told Rud-didet what she hadheard. Then Rud-didet came down to the room,and could not find the place whence the soundcame. She placed her head agauist the sack ofbarley, and found that the noise was inside it ;therefore she placed the sack in a wooden coffer.She sealed it with another seal ; she tied it roundwith leather, and she placed the whole in the store-room, and sealed the door with her own seal.

When Ra-user returned from working in hisgarden, Rud-didet told him the whole affair, and


he was highly delighted, and they sat down andmade a holiday of it.

Now, some time after all this, it befell that Rud-



didet quarrelled with her servant, and caused herto be beaten.

The servant said to the others who were in thehouse : *' Does she think that she can treat methus, she who has borne three Kings ? 1 will goand tell the whole affair to his gracious MajestyKing Khufu."

So she went away, and she found her uncle,her mother's brother, who was busy bundling upflax.

He said to her: " Whither goest thou, my littlemaid ?"

And she told him the whole story.

Then said her uncle : " And you have the im-pudence to come to me. I will teach you to rebeland play the traitress."

So he took a bunch of the flax, and gave hera sound thrashing. The servant ran down to theriver to bathe her bruises ; and, behold, a crocodilecarried her away.

When her uncle ran to Rud-didet to tell herwhat had happened, he found the lady seated, her

6


head bowed upon her knees, and her heart sadderthan tongue can telL

He said to her : " Madame, why so sad ?"

She answered : " Because of that httle shit whowas in the house ; behold, she has gone awaysaying, ' 1 will go, and I will denounce them tothe King.' "

Then the uncle made salaam, and said to her :

" My lady, when she came to tell me what hadhappened, and made complaint to me, I gave hera sound beating ; then she went to bathe herbruises, and lo I a crocodile carried her away."

(The rest of the story is lost ; but probably itmay have contained the account of how KingKhufu endeavoured to obtain possession of thechildren who were to dethrone his descendants,and how the Sun-god's children escaped his efforts,and came at last to the throne.)



CHAPTER IV

THE WIZARDS OF THE EMPIRE: SETNA ANDTHE MAGIC ROLL

The two stories of Setna and the Magic Roll,and Setna and his son Senosiris, which follow inChapters IV. and V., are of very much later datethan the Tales of the Old Magicians. The first was'written in the time of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs ofEgypt, about 300 B.C. or later ; the second in thereign of Claudius Ca?sar, about a.d. 46-47. At thesame time, though they are thus almost modern,as things go in Egypt, they no doubt representvery ancient traditions which had been handeddown in one form or another for many centuries.The Prince who gives the title to both storiesis a well-known historical personage. Setna-

Khaemuas (Setna Glory - in - Thebes) was thefavourite son of the famous Egyptian Pharaoh,Ramses II., who may have been the oppressor ofthe Hebrews. In all probability he was destined

43


for the throne, for he exercised the highest officesduring his father's hfetime, being High-Priest at

Memphis among other things ; but he died beforethe long reign of Ramses closed, and the successionfell to his brother INlerenptah. Khaemuas had agreat reputation in Egypt for learning ; and, asalmost always happened in ancient days witness�Michael Scott and Friar Bacon a reputation for�learning meant almost inevitably a reputation forskill in the magic arts.

The story of Setna and the Magic Roll is againdouble a tale within a tale ; and it is more diffi-�cult to decide the period to which the dead Prince,Na-nefer-ka-ptah, and his wife Ahura, are sup-

posed to belong. There is no King of Egyptknown who bears the name Mer-neb-ptah given byAhura in her story. The probability is that thename is a corruption of one of the titles of thefamous and magnificent Pharaoh Amenhotep III.The Setna part of the story, therefore, dates fromabout 1300 B.C., and Ahura 's tale takes us back,roughly speaking, another century.

In Ahura's account of how Na-nefer-ka-ptahgained the book of Thoth we see again the per-



sistent Egyptian belief in the possibility of making

THE WIZARDS OF THE EMPIRE 45

and vivifying waxen images, and obliging them todo the v^'ill of their creator ; while the enclosing

of the book in a series of boxes is perhaps theoldest illustration of a formula for the protectionof precious things which occurs in the wonder talesof almost all nations.

In the second story of the Setna tradition, apartfrom the reappearance, on both sides of the struggle,of the waxen images as instruments of the wizard'swill, the interest centres upon the altogether extra-ordinary parallel which is presented, by the visit ofSetna and his wondrous child to the underworld,to our Lord's parable of the rich man and Lazarus.The date of the manuscript is such that it does not

absolutely preclude the possibility of some echo ofthe parable of Jesus having floated down into Egyptand reached the writer of the tale ; but it is alsosuch as to render such a thing highly improbable.All that can be said is that the resemblance iswonderfully striking.

The contest between the old Egyptian wizardreincarnate in the boy Senosiris, and the reincarna-tion of the old Ethiopian wizard, naturally calls upthe appearance of Moses and Aaron before theEgyptian Court, with the difference that here the

46 WONDER TALKS OF TIIK ANCIKN'I' WORLD

advantage, naturally, is made to lie with the nativewizard, and it is interesting to remember once morethat in the whole Setna tradition we are dealingwith a person who almost certainly comes veryclose in point of time to the actual period of theKxodus, and who may have been absolutely a con-temporary of the great Hebrew leaders.

The marriage of Prince Na-nefer-ka-ptah to his

sister the Princess Ahura, is strictly in accordancewith ancient Egyptian ideas of a fitting matrimonialarrangement for children of the royal house ; whilethe old priest's demand for two coffins to be madefor him and a splendid funeral to be accorded himin return for his inlbrmation, illustrates the extra-ordinary importance which the Egyptian mindattached to all details connected with the life afterdeath. Na-nefer-ka-ptah's way of learning the spellsof the book of Thoth, by copying them and thenwâshing off the ink with beer, and drinking the



beer, is a regular Oriental fashion of literally absorb-ing knowledge. Many Egj-ptian and Babyloniandrinking-vessels, both ancient and modern, havecharms engraved upon them whose \irtue is sup-posed to be imparted to the liquid which is drunkfrom them. At the end of the story, " How Isis


stole the Great Name of Ra," will be found direc-tions for using the story as a spell exactly as Na-nefer-ka-ptah used the spells of the Magic Roll.

The Story of Setna axd the Magic Rotj,.

Once upon a time there was a great King ofEg}'pt named User-maat-Ra (Ramses II.). towhom be life, health, and strength. He had avery large family, and one of liis sons, whose name

was Sctna-Kliaemuas, wâs a very wise and learnedman. lie used to spend nearly all his time study-ing the sacred books, or reading the inscriptionsengraved upon the walls of the temple and thetablets in the cemetery of Memphis. Moreover,he was a great magician, there was none like himin all the land of P^gypt. He knew all kinds ofcharms and spells, and could speak and write wordsof power that made all creatures and spirits do hisbidding.

Now, it happened one day that Setna was stand-ing in the court of the temple of the great god

Ptah, reading the inscriptions on the walls, when aman of noble appearance who stood near him beganto laugh loudly. Setna turned angrily to him, andsaid : " \N hy are you laughing at me?"


The man answered : "I am not laughing atyou, but I am laughing to see you wasting yourtime reading these senseless words when I cantell you where to find a book which the god

Thoth wrote with his own hand. To read itwill make you only a little lower than the gods.There are two spells in it. When you repeatthe first, you will charm heaven and earth, seaand sky, mountains and rivers ; you will under-stand what the birds say as they fly, and the ser-pents as they crawl ; and when you call to the fish,a divine power will bring them up to the surface ofthe water. When you repeat the second spell,though you were in your grave you will come backto life again as you were before ; and you will see



the sun in the sky, and the moon in her changes,and all the company of the gods."

" By my life," said Setna, " show me where thisbook is, and I will give you anything you like toask."

*' The book is not mine," said the stranger. " It

lies in the tomb of Prince Na-nefer-ka-ptah, son ofKing Mer-neb-ptah (to whom be life, health, andstrength). Only I advise you not to meddle withit, ^for Na-nefer-ka-ptah will make you bring it


back again, with a forked stick i n your hand and afire-pan on your head."

As soon as Setna heard where the book was, he

cared for nothing else on earth. He hastened away,as fast as his feet would carry him, to the King hisfather, told him everything that had been said, andasked his permission to go down into the tomb ofPrince Na-nefer-ka-ptah, and bring back the magicbook. So he took with him his foster-brotherAn-he-hor-er-u, and for three days and three nightsthey searched the cemetery of Memphis, reading allthe inscriptions on the tombs, that they might findthe tomb of Prince Na-nefer-ka-ptah. When atlast, on the third day, they found it, Setna reciteda spell over it ; the earth opened, and he went downinto the long rock-hewn passage that led to the

chamber of the tomb, leaving his foster-brother towait for him above. A vulture and a crow flappedslowly on before him down the passage till theycame to the door of the chamber, where theyperched, one on either side. A great stone closedthe door of the tomb ; but Setna, putting out allhis strength, rolled it aside, and went boldly intothe chamber.

At first his eyes were dazzled, for a great light

7


shone from the magic roll, and the whole chamberwas as bright as day. After a little he lookedround, and there was Prince Na-nefer-ka-ptah sittingin his chair, and beside him were the ghosts of hiswife Ahura and his little boy Merab. Their bodieswere buried far away up the Nile at Coptos ; but, bythe power of his magic book, Na-nefer-ka-ptah had



brought their spirits back to Memphis to keep himcompany in his grave.

So, when Setna came in, the Princess Ahurasprang up and cried : " Who art thou ?"

And Setna answered : " I am Prince Setna-Khaemuas, son of King Ramses " (to whom be life,

health, and strength), " and I am come to carryaway this book of Thoth which I see between you

and your husband. Give it to me, or I will take it

by force."

Then said the lady Ahura : " Do not take it

away, I beg of you ; but listen first to the story

of all the evils which it has brought upon us, and

how the getting of it shortened our days upon

earth."

So Ahura began, and told to Setna the story

of the magic book.


The Story of Princess Ahura.

" My name is Ahura, and when I was ahve I wasthe daughter of King Mer-neb-ptah (to whom beHfe, health, and strength), and Na-nefer-ka-ptah, myhusband, was my brother, and we loved one anothervery dearly. When I grew old enough to bemarried, the King my father said to the Queen mymother : 'See, Ahura our daughter is quite grownup, and it is liigh time that she was married. Towhom shall we marry her V Now, I had told mymother that I loved Na-nefer-ka-ptah, and wouldhave none other but him for my husband. So mymother said to my father : ' Ahura loves Na-nefer-

ka-ptah ; let us marry them, the one to the other,according to the custom.' But my father said :' We have only these two children, why shouldthey marry one another? Let us marry the oneto the daughter of a General, and the other to theson of a General ; for this will be far better forthe family.'

" That night there was a banquet in the palace,and I had to appear before Pharaoh my father ; butI was grieved at what he had said, and was not



so gay and bright as usual. So Pharaoh said to


me : ' Iîttle stupid, what folly is this that you havesaid to your mother about marrying your brother V

' Oh, well,' I said, ' do what you like marry me�to the son of a General, and marry my brotherto the daughter of a General, and let us be a happyfamily.' Then I laughed, and Pharaoh laughed,for he saw that I should never be happy withoutNa-nefer-ka-ptah. And he said to his Chamberlain :' Marry Ahura to Na-nefer-ka-ptah this very night,and send to their house treasures of gold and silver,and all sorts of good things.' So we were married,and were very happy together for a while ; and wehad this one son, little Merab, whom you see.

" But after a time my husband began, like you,

to think of nothing but reading the sacred books,and the inscriptions in the temples and the tabletson the tombs of the Pharaohs. Now, one day,when he was reading the writings on the wallsof the Temple of Ptah, an old man who wasstanding by laughed at him. * Why are you laugh-ing at me ?' said Na-nefer-ka-ptah.

" * I am not laughing at you,' said the old priest,* but I am laughing to see you wasting your timein reading this nonsense. If you really wish to seesomething worth reading, come to me, and I shall


show you a book which Thoth wrote with his ownhand. There are two spells in it. When yourepeat the first you will charm heaven and earth,sea and sky, mountains and rivers ; you will under-stand what the birds say as they fly, and theserpents as they crawl ; and when you call to thefish, a divine power will bring them up to the sur-face of the water. When you repeat the second,though you were in your grave, you will come back

to life again as you were before ; and you will seethe sun in the sky, and the moon in her changes,and all the company of the gods.'

*' ' By the life of Pharaoh,' said my husband, * tellme anything you wish, and I will give it you, if onlyyou will bring me where this book is.'

" Then said the priest : ' If you wish me to showyou where the book is, you must give me onehundred pieces of silver, and cause two coffins to be



made for me, that so 1 may be buried as a richpriest.'

" So the money was handed over, and the coffinswere made, and then the priest said : ' The bookyou wish is in the middle of the River Nile atCoptos, in an iron box. In the iron box is a bronzebox ; in the bronze box is a sycamore box ; in the

54 WONDER TALES OF THE ANCIENT AVORLl)

sycamore box is an ivory and ebony box ; in theivory and ebony box is a sihêr box ; in the silverbox is a gold box ; and in the gold box is the book.Round about the box are snakes and scorpions, andall sorts of crawling things ; and a deathless serpentkeeps guard over all.'

" When my husband heard this he was so glad

that he scarcely knew where he was. He cameand told me all about it, and said : ' I am going toCoptos to bring back this book, and then I willnever leave you any more.' But when I knewwhat was in his mind, I was very angry with thepriest for what he had said, and I threatened him ;for I was sure that if my husband went up theNile to look for the book, harm would come of it.Then I besought Na-nefer-ka-ptah not to go toCoptos ; but he would not listen to me. He wentto Pharaoh and told him everything, and Pharaohsaid to him : ' What do you really want, then ?'

" ' Give me your royal barge, with the crew andtackle,' said he, * and I shall take my wife and myson, and go south and bring back this book ; andthen I will never leave this place any more.'

" So we embarked on the royal barge and cameto Coptos. When we arrived, the High-Priest and


the other priests of I sis at Coptos came down to

meet us, bringing their wives to sahite me. Weoffered sacrifice and stayed there for five days, thepriests making hoHday with Na-nefer-ka-ptah, andtheir wives making hohday with me. On themorning of the sixth day my husband caused agreat quantity of pure wax to be brought to liim.Out of it he made a boat with rowers and sailors.He recited a spell over them, which gave them lifeand breath, and then he launched the boat in theriver, filling it with sand. Then he went on board,and I waited by the bank of the river, saying : ' I



must see what will happen to him.'

*' So Na-nefer-ka-ptah cried to his waxen sailors :' Oarsmen, row me to the place where the book ofThoth lies ;' and they rowed day and night, till inthree days they came to the place. Then he threwsand into the river, and the water parted this wayand that way, and lo ! in the midst of the river-bed

there was a great tangle of serpents and scorpionsand all sorts of creeping things over the box. Herecited a spell over them, and in a moment all theirwriggling and twisting ceased, and they were heldmotionless by the power of his magic. Then hecame to the deathless snake, and, as it reared its


fiery crest against him, he struck it a mighty hlow,so that it fell dead before him ; hut immediately it

came to life again. A second time he slew it, anda second time it came to life. But the third timehe filled his left hand with sand and drew his sword,and as the serpent reared up agaiFist him, he smoteit so that it fell in two halves, and then in a momenthe cast the sand between the writhing pieces of thecreature's body, so that they could not come to-gether again. The deathless snake was dead.

" Na-nefer-ka-ptah took the iron box out fromthe midst of the stiffened coil of serpents andscorpions, and opened it. Within it was a bronzebox, and inside that a sycamore box, and inside

that an ivory and ebony box, and inside that asilver box, and inside that a golden box, and in thegolden box lay the book. He took it out, brokethe seals and undid the knots, and unrolled it.When he had read the first spell, he charmed theheavens and the earth, the sea and the sky, themountains and the rivers : he understood whatthe birds say as they fly and the serpents as theycrawl; and when he called to the fish, a divinepower made them come to the surface of thewater. Then he recited another spell, and the


river closed again over the place where the boxhad been.

" So he went on board the waxen boat oncemore, and said : ' Oarsmen, row me back againto the place where Ahiira waits for me ;' and theyrowed day and night for three days, till they foundme sitting by the river-bank at Coptos. For all



the time he was absent I had tasted neither foodnor drink, but had sat like one dead.

'* After we had welcomed one another, ' By the lifeof Pharaoh,' said I to him, ' let me see this book forwhich we have taken so much trouble.' He put theroll into my hand, and when I had read it, I couldenchant everything just as he could. Then he made

a copy of the whole book, washed oft' the ink withbeer, and drank the beer ; and so he knew every-thing that had been written in the roll of Thoth.

" So we embarked once more on the royal barge,and rowed northwards from Coptos. But the godThoth had learned what we had done, and he wentto Ra, the chief of the gods, and complained to himthat Na-nefer-ka-ptah had robbed him of his bookand killed its guardian serpent. Then said Ra :' He is in your hands, he and all that is his.' ThenThoth sent a curse from heaven, saying : ' Forbid

8


that Na-nefer-ka-ptah should ever return toMemphis safe and sound with his family.' Inthat very moment when the curse descended thelittle boy Merab came out from under the awningof the barge, and lo ! he fell into the river. As hefell, all who saw him cried out, and his father cameswiftly from the cabin. Swiftly, too, he spoke

with words of power, and Merab rose to the surfaceof the water and was drawn on board. Then, asthey laid him down on the deck, Xa-nefer-ka-ptahrecited another spell, and Merab opened his coldlips and told him all that had happened and howThoth had accused him before the gods ; but nospell could bring our little boy back to life again.

*' So we returned sadly to Coptos, and there weembalmed little Merab, and laid him in the tombwith such honour as becomes a Prince of the houseof Pharaoh ; and we hastened northwards again,lest the King our father should hear first from

others of what had happened, and should betroubled. But when we came to the place whereMerab had been drowned, the curse wrought oncemore, and as I came out from under the awningof the barge, I too fell into the river. My husbandbrought me to the surface again by his spells ; but




he could not bring me back to life. So he returnedwith me to Coptos, embalmed my body, and buriedme beside our little son with the state that becomesa Princess.

*' Then with a sad and lonely heart he embarkedonce more for Mempiiis ; but as the barge passedthe place where the curse had fallen upon us, he

said to himself: ' Would it not be better to die,and to be buried with them both ? How shall Iface Pharaoh and say to him : " I have taken yourchildren with me ; I have slain them, and now I comeback alive to you "?' He took a long piece of fineroyal linen, and fastened the magic roll tightlyround his waist ; and then he went out from underthe awning of the barge, and cast himself into theriver. And all who saw it cried out : 'Woe andlamentation I He is gone, the good scribe, thewise man who had no equal !'

" So at last the barge of Pharaoh finished its

voyage, in very different guise from that in whichit went forth, and no one knew what had becomeof Na-nefer-ka-ptah. But when the galley cameto Memphis, Pharaoh and his courtiers, the garrisonof the city, and all the priests came out in mourninggarments to meet it ; and, behold I they saw the


body of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, which, by his spells, hadentangled itself with the steering-oars. They lifted

it up, but none dared to take from his bosom themagic roll for which he had paid so dearly ; andwhen they had embalmed him and mourned himfor many days, they buried him in this tomb.

" Beliokl, therefore, Setna, 1 have told you allthe sorrows which have come to us because of thisbook which you covet, and would fain take byforce. You have no right to it, but we have ; forbecause of it our days of life on earth have beencut short. ..."

So said Ahura ; but Setna would not listen to

her pleading.

" Give me the book," he said roughly, " or elseI take it by force," for he knew that the ghostscould not withstand a living man.

Then said Na-nefer-ka-ptah, and he spakecraftily : " If you are so hard-hearted, let us stakethe book upon a game of draughts. I will playyou for it, the best of fifty- two points."



" Done," said Setna. So the board was takenfrom the funeral furniture ; and the two magicians,the living and the dead, sat down to play for themagic roll. Na-nefer-ka-ptah won the first game.


Triumphant, he recited a spell ; then he struckSetna on the head with the board, and Setna sankinto the earth up to his knees. The pieces werearranged once more, and the second game began.It ended hke the first, and Setna sank to his waist.Then the third game, Setna's last hope, went asthe first and second had done, and the defeatedwizard sank to his neck.

In despair he called for his foster-brother, An-he-hor-er-u, and said : " Hasten to Pharaoh, tellhim what has happened, and bring here my book

of incantations and the talisman of Ptah." An-he-hor-er-u hastened to the palace, and came backwith the talisman. He placed it upon Setna's head,and Setna immediately rose out of the earth again.Then, stretching out his hand, he took the magicroll from between the two helpless ghosts ; and ashe went forth from the tomb, light went beforehim, and darkness was behind him. Ahura weptas he went, crying : *' Glory to the King of Dark-ness I Glory to the King of Light ! All power isgone from our tomb." " Do not trouble yourself,"said Na-nefer-ka-ptah, " I will make him bring backthe book before long, with a forked stick in his

hand and a fire-pan on his head." So Setna went


forth from the tomb, and it closed behind him, evenas it was before, so that no man might know of theentrance. Then he went to Pharaoh, and told himall that had happened ; and Pharaoh said to him :*' If you are a wise man, you will put the bookback in the tomb of Na-nefer-ka-ptah : other-wise he will make you bring it back, with a forked

stick in your hand and a fire-pan on your head."But Setna paid no heed to Pharaoh's warning ; hecould think of nothing but unrolling the book andreading it to everybody whom he met.

Then it happened one day that, as he walked inthe court of the temple of Ptah, he saw a verybeautiful girl. There was not a woman in all theland to match her in beauty ; she was richly dressedand bedecked with golden ornaments ; a number ofyoung girls walked behind her, and she had fifty- two



servants in her train. When Setna saw her, hewas enchanted with her beauty. He sent his pageto inquire her name, and found that she wasTabubua, daughter of a priest of the cat-goddessBast. So eager was he that he followed her to herhouse, and there pled hard with her that she wouldmarry him. Really, he was in a dream which Na-nefer-ka-ptah had sent upon him by enchantment,


and Tabubua was an evil spirit sent to torment him ;but this he did not know. Before she would consentto marry him, Tabubua insisted, first that he shouldgive her all his estate as her marriage portion, nextthat he should disinherit his own children, and atlast that he should cause his children to be slain.So in his madness he granted her wishes ; thechildren were slain, and their bodies were cast to

the dogs and cats, and Setna heard the hungry-brutes crunching their bones while he sat drinkingwine with Tabubua. Then he claimed her promise ;but, as he stretched out his arms to her, she gavea dreadful cry and vanished ; and Setna awoke,and found himself lying in a miserable hovel, with-out a stitch of clothes to cover him.

Terribly ashamed and frightened, he hurried backto Memphis, and when he got to the palace hefound his children, to his great joy, not as he hadseen them in his dream all mangled and bleeding�

but safe and sound. Everyone marvelled to see� �

the wise Prince in such a state, and Pharaoh hisfather looked upon him and said : " Setna, haveyou been drunk, that you come here in such amiserable condition ?" So Setna told him thewhole story of his evil dream, and Pharaoh said :


" AVell, I warned you already that you would cometo a bad end unless you gave back the book. Nowtake it back to Na-nefer-ka-ptah, with a forked

stick in your hand and a fire-pan on your head."

So Setna took the book, and with a forked stickin his hand and a fire-pan on his head, he wentdown again into the tomb. When she saw him,Ahura said : " Setna, you may thank the greatgod Ptah that you are here alive."

But Na-nefer-ka-ptah chuckled and said : " Whatdid I tell you before ?" And while they talked,behold the whole tomb was filled \vith light.



Then said Setna very humbly : '* What penancedo you put upon me, Na-nefer-ka-ptah ?"

And Na-nefer-ka-ptah answered: "You see,Setna, that the bodies of my wife Ahura and myson Merab are still at Coptos, though by my artstheir ghosts are here with me I order you to go

to Coptos and bring them here, that we may be allunited in one tomb."

So Setna took the royal barge and went toCoptos, and there he searched vainly for threedays and three nights m the cemetery, moving thetombstones and reading the inscriptions upon them,but nowhere could he find the tomb of Ahura and

^l .l.\ A Ki'.sroKKs nil-; laM.i. to thk tomb.�


Merab. At last he found an old, old man, andasked him if he knew where they lay. The oldman thought for a while, and then said : "Myfather's father's father once said to my father'sfather : ' The tomb of the Princess Ahura and herson Merab is under the southern angle of thepriest's house.'"

" Has the priest done you any harm," saidSetna, " that you want me to knock down hishouse ?"

" Keep me under guard," said the old man," while you knock down the house, and if you donot find the tomb, you may punish me as a rogue."So they put him under guard, and pulled downthe priest's house, and under its southern cornerthey found the tomb with the bodies of Ahura andMerab. Then they built up the house exactly asit was before, and taking Ahura and Merab onboard the barge, Setna went back to Memphis.

Then Pharaoh (to' whom be life, health, andstrength) caused the dead Princess and her son tobe carried with honour to the tomb of Na-nefer-ka-ptah, and when the family had been unitedonce more, the tomb was sealed, and they wereleft in peace.

9




This is the complete writing of the story ofSetna-Khaemuas, and Na-nefer-ka-ptah, and hiswife Ahura, and their son Merab. It was writtenby the scribe Zeharpet, in the fifteenth year, in themonth Tybi.

CHAPTER V

THE WIZARDS OF THE EMFIRE Continued�

The True Story of Setna-Khaemuas and hisSon Senosiris.

Once upon a time there was a great King ofEgypt, called User-maat-Ra (to whom be life,health, and strength). He had a son named Setna-Khaemuas, who was the wisest of all scribes in the

land of Egypt ; but Setna had no child, and hisheart was very sad, and so was the heart of hiswife. Now, it fell out that one night when S etna'swife was sleeping, the god Imhotep appeared toher in a dream, and promised her that a son shouldbe born to her and her husband, and that he shouldwork great miracles in the land of Egypt. Whenthe little boy was born, they called him Senosiris,and he grew so fast that when he was one year oldpeople would have said he was two, and when hewas two they would have said that he was three.His father was so fond of him that he could not

67


bear to let him out of his sight even for an hour.When he grew big he was sent to scliool, but in avery short time he knew more than his teacher.Then he began to read spells with the scribes ofthe Double House of Life of the temple, so that allwho heard him were filled with wonder ; andSetna delighted to take him before Pharaoh on

festival days, that he might see him striving withhis magic against the magicians of Pharaoh, andholding his own with the best of them.

Now, after this it happened one day when Setnawas bathing on the terrace of his house and Seno-siris with him, that they heard a loud lamentation.They looked down, and behold there was a richman being carried to his burial in the IMountain ofthe West with great mourning and honour. Andwhile they looked, behold, a poor man was carried



also to his grave, wrapped in a mat, and with noone to follow him or to weep over him.

Then said Setna : " By the life of Osiris, Lord ofthe Underworld, may my lot in Hades be like thatof the rich man for whom they make mourning, andnot like that of the poor man whom they burywithout honour I"

But Senosiris, his little son, said to him :


" Father, may your lot in Hades be like that ofthe poor man, and may there never happen toyou that which is happening to the rich man inHades."

When Setna heard these words, he was greatly

grieved, and said : " Are these the words of a childwho loves his father ?"

Then Senosiris said to him : " If you wish it, Ishall show to you, each one in his own place, thepoor man over whom no one wept, and the richman over whom such lamentation was made."

So Senosiris, the little boy, recited his spells.He took his father by the hand, and led him to aplace which he did not know, in the mountain ofMemphis. Here were seven great halls, and inthem were people of all sorts. They passed

through the first three, no man offering to hinderthem. In the fourth they saw a number of mentoiling hard, while behind them asses devoured allthe fruit of their labours. Beside them were menover whose heads hung bread and water. Everynow and then they sprang up to seize the food,but as fast as they sprang, others dug away theground from beneath their feet, so that they wereno nearer the bread than before.


When they came to the fifth hall, behold thepivot of the great door turned in the eye-socket ofa man who lay beneath it, beseeching the gods formercy, and uttering terrible cries of pain. Whenthey came to the sixth hall, Setna saw the forty-two gods of the jury of the other world, sitting totry the causes of the souls of men, while the ushersof the court called the causes. When they cameto the seventh hall, Setna saw the great god Osirissitting on his throne of pure gold, and crowned



with his diadem with its double plumes. Anubis,the great god, stood on his left, and Thoth, thegreat god, on his right, while all around sat thejury of the gods. In the midst of the hall stood abalance, and there the hearts of men were weighed.Those whose sins were more than their \4rtues,their souls and bodies were cast to the Devourerof the Unjustified ; but he whose virtues were

more than his sins, was led in among the gods, andhis soul went up to heaven among the souls of theblest.

Then Setna saw a distinguished person, clothedin garments of fine linen, standing in a place ofhonour close to the throne of Osiris ; and while hemarvelled at all this that he was seeing, Senosiris


said to him : " My father, do you see this noblepersonage, clothed in fine linen, standing close tothe throne of Osiris ? This is the poor man whomyou saw being carried to the grave, wrapped up in amat, with no one to mourn over him. When he camehere to judgment, it was found that his virtueswere more than his sins, and that on earth hehad not had the good fortune and happiness thathe deserved ; and so it was ordained that all thetreasures of the rich man whom you saw carriedwith honour to his grave should be transferred tohim, and that he should be placed among the soulsof the blessed, near to the throne of Osiris. As for

the rich man, his sins were found to be more thanhis virtues, and punishment has fallen upon him.It is he who lies beneath the door of the fifth hall,with the pivot of the door turning in his eye-socket, while he prays for mercy and utters criesof pain. By the life of the great god Osiris, wasnot I right when I said to you on earth, ' Mayyour lot be like that of the poor man, and notlike that of the rich V "

Then said Setna : " My son Senosiris, many arethe wonders I have seen in Hades. Now may Iknow who are the men who toil while the asses


devour behind them, and who are they who leapto grasp the bread hanging over their heads, whileothers dig the ground from beneath their feet ? "

Senosiris replied : " My father, the first are menwho on earth were cursed of the gods, and who



toiled day and night for their living, only that theirextravagant wives might devour all that theyearned. When tliey came to Hades, it was foundthat their sins were more than their virtues, and sotheir punishment here is the same as it was onearth. As for those whose bread hangs over theirheads, and who yet can never reach it, these aremen who on earth seemed to have prosperity in

their grasp, but God's providence, no man knewwhy, never allowed them to attain it. When theycame here, it was found that their sins were greaterthan their virtues, and so their punishment here isthe same as that which had begun for them onearth."

So when Senosiris had spoken thus, he and hisfather returned to INlemphis, and Setna could nottell what was the way by which he had descendedinto Hades. Therefore Setna marvelled greatlybecause of the things which he had seen in theother world, and when the little boy Senosiris was


twelve years old, there was not a scribe or amagician in Memphis who could equal him in thereading of spells.

Now, after this, it fell out on a day that Pharaohwas seated in the audience-chamber of his palaceat Memphis, while all the Princes, the chief officers,and the great men of Egypt, stood before him,

eacli according to his rank at Court. Then camethere an usher to the King and said : " Thus andthus says a vile Ethiopian, even that he carrieswith him a sealed letter unto Pharaoh (to whombe life, health, and strength)."

So the man was brought unto the Court, andhe made obeisance, saying : " Is there any manhere who can read the sealed letter which I bringto Pharaoh without opening it or breaking theseals ? If there is no man in Egypt, scribe ormagician, who can do this, then I will proclaimEgypt inferior to the land of the negroes my�

country."

When Pharaoh and his servants heard thesewords, they were greatly troubled, saying : " Bythe life of Ptah, where is there a wise scribe or amagician clever enough to read a letter withoutopening it or breaking the seals thereof?"

10




Then said Pharaoh : " Call to me Setna-Khaemuas, my son." When Setna came, hebowed to the ground and adored Pharaoh ; thenhe arose and stood upright, blessing and praisingPharaoh. Then said Pharaoh to him : " My son

Setna, have you heard the words wherewith thisfilthy Ethiopian has spoken before my Majesty,saying, ' Is there a good scribe or a wise man inEgypt who can read the letter which is in my handwithout opening it or breaking the seals V "

The moment Setna heard this he wâs troubledand said : " Mighty Lord, who is there that canread a letter without opening it ? Nevertheless,let me have ten days' grace, that I may see what Ican do, lest Egypt should be proclaimed inferior tothe land of these gum-eating negi'oes."

Then answered Pharaoh : " So be it, my sonSetna."

So they appointed a lodging for the Ethiopianmessenger, and they made him filthy food, suchas the Ethiopians love ; and Pharaoh arose fromhis throne heavy and displeased exceedingly, andwent to bed without eating or drinking.

Setna went to his house, scarcely knowingwhither he went. He wrapped himself in a mantle


from head to foot, and lay down upon his bed ingreat perplexity. His wife heard of it and came tohis room. " Setna, my husband," she said, " youhave no fever, your hmbs are whole, your sicknessis nothing but sadness of heart."

" Leave me, my wife," he answered ; " the busi-ness that troubles me is not a matter to tell to awoman."

Then came the little boy Senosiris. He bento\'er his father and said to him : " My father, whyhave you lain down, heavy at heart ? Tell me thetroubles that weigh upon you, that I may takethem away."

" Leave me, my son Senosiris," he answered ;" you are too young to understand the mattersthat grieve my heart."

" Tell me them, all the same," said Senosiris,



" that I may calm your heart with regard tothem."

Then said Setna to him ; " My son Senosiris, itis a vile Ethiopian who has come into Egypt,carrying with him a sealed letter, and saying : ' Isthere anyone here who can read this letter withoutopening it ? If there is no good scribe or wise man

able to read it, I will proclaim Egypt inferior to


my country, the land of the negroes.' I have laindown grieved and heavy of heart over this busi-ness."

When Senosiris heard this he laughed in hisfather's face.

" W^hy are you laughing?" said Setna.

" I am laughing to see you making sucli a to-doover such a triHe. Rise up, my father, for I willread everything that is written in the letter withoutopening it or breaking the seals."

** But what proof can you give me, Senosiris, myson, that you can do this ?"

" My father," said he, " go to your library in thebasement of the house, and I will tell you thename of each book that you choose as you take it

out of its case, remaining here myself all the time."

So Setna went to his library, and Senosiris readfor him every book that he took out, without itsbeing opened. Setna came up from the basementthe happiest man on earth. He lost no time ingoing to the palace where Pharaoh was ; he toldhim all that Senosiris had said, and Pharaohrejoiced exceedingly.

When the morrow came, Pharaoh came into theaudience-chamber in the midst of his nobles ; he


sent for the vile Ethiopian, who was brought intothe hall with the sealed letter upon him, and stoodin the midst of the Court. The child Senosiris alsocame and stood in the midst, beside the vileEthiopian. Then he spake thus against him, say-ing : " The curse of Amen thy god be upon thee,Ethiopian I Thou hast dared, then, to come to



Egypt, the sweet pool of Osiris, saying, ' I shallproclaim the inferiority of Egypt to the land of thenegroes.' May the anger of Amen tliy god fallupon thee! Listen to the words which I shallrecite unto thee, and which are written in the letter,and do not dare to deny them falsely beforePharaoh thy sovereign."

When the vile Ethiopian saw the child lie bowedhis head to the ground and said : "I will saynothing false concerning what thou say est."

Here beginneth the story which Senosiris re-cited in the midst of the Court before Pharaoh andhis nobles, the people of Egypt listening to hisvoice, while he read all that was written in theletter which the vile Ethiopian carried. Thus hespake :

" It happened one day, in the prosperous timesof the King Siamen, that, as the King of the Land


of the Negroes took his siesta in the pleasaunce ofAmen, he heard three vile Ethiopians talking in ahouse behind him. One of them spake loudly,saying, among other things, ' If Amen would keepme safe from the anger of the King of Egypt, Iwould cast my spells upon Egypt, so that for threedays and three nights there should be thick dark-ness, and no one should see the light.' The second

said, ' If Amen would keep me safe from the angerof the King of Egypt, I would cast a spell uponEgypt, and bring Pharaoh of Egypt to the Land ofthe Negroes, give him publicly, before the King,five hundred blows with the courbash, and carryhim back to Egypt in exactly six hours.' Thethird said, ' If Amen would keep me safe from theanger of the King of Egypt, I would cast a spellupon Egypt so that nothing should grow in thefields for three years.'

" Then the King of Ethiopia caused the three vileEthiopians to be brought before him, and said to

the second of them : ' Execute by your magic spellsthat which you have said, and, by my god Amen,if you do it well, I will make you rich.'

" So the wizard, whose name was Horus, madeof wax a litter with four bearers ; he recited a spell

THE CURSE OF AMEN, TIIV (IcD. i;k LI'u.X lin.i,. I, J 1 1 lOl'IAN '� �



{p. 77)


over them, and breathed hard upon them ; he gave

them hfe, and said : ' You will go to Egypt ; youwill bring back Pharaoh to this place where theKing is ; you vaW give him a good beating, fivehundred blows with the courbash, before the King,and then you will carry him back again to Egypt,all in six hours, and not a minute more.'

" They answered, ' We will leave nothing undoneof what you have ordered.' So the familiars of theEthiopian hastened to Egypt ; they made them-selves masters of the night ; they took possessionof the Pharaoh Siamen ; they brought him to theLand of the Negroes where the King was ; they gave

him a good beating, five hundred blows of thecourbash, in public before the King, and then theycarried him back to Egypt, all in six hours, and nota minute more."

Thus spake Senosiris before Pharaoh and hisnobles and the people of Egypt ; and then he saidto the Ethiopian : " The curse of Amen thy godbe upon thee ! Are not my words the words ofthe letter which is in thy hand ?"

The vile Ethiopian answered : " Go on reading,for all your words are true, so far as you have

gone."


Then said Senosiris : " After all this had hap-pened, Pharaoh awoke, sore all over with the blowswhich he had received. In the morning he said tohis courtiers, ' What evil thing has happened toEgypt that I have been obliged to leave it V

" Ashamed at their own thoughts, the courtiers

said one to another : ' Has I'haraoh gone mad VThen they said aloud : ' What is the meaning ofthe words which thou hast spoken before us, Ogreat Iôrd V Then Pharaoh arose ; he showedthem his back, all scarred with blows, and he said :* By the life of the great god Ptah, someone hascarried me to the Land of the Negroes during thenight. They have given me a good beating, fivehundred blows with the whip, before the King ofthe Ethiopians, and they have brought me back, allin six hours, and not a minute more.'



" When his courtiers saw the scarred back ofPharaoh, they uttered loud cries of astonishment.Now, the Pharaoh Siamen had a head Ubrariannamed Horus, son of Panehsi, and he was verywise.

" When he came before the King, he gave a great

cry, saying : ' My lord, this is the magic of theEthiopians. By the life of your royal house, I

THE WIZARDS OP THE EMPIRE 8l

will make them come to your house of tortureand execution !'

" Then said Pharaoh : ' Be quick about it then,lest I be carried to the Land of the Negroes anothernight.'

" So the chief scribe Horus went at once. Hetook his magic books and charms to the palace,and put a charm upon Pliaraoh, so that the spellsof the Ethiopians should not take hold upon him.Then he went to the temple of Thoth, the ninetimes great god, and prayed for his help.

" The image of the great god spake to him, saying :' Go to-morrow morning to the library of thetemple ; there you will find a shrine, closed andsealed ; open it, and you will find a box in whichis a book which I have written with my own hand.

Take it, copy it, and put it back again ; for it isthe spell which protects against evil, and it willprotect Pharaoh, and save him from the sorceriesof the Ethiopians.'

" The wise scribe Horus therefore did as the godhad told him, and wrote a charm for Pharaoh ; andthe next night, when the familiars of the Ethiopiancame, they could not master Pharaoh, because he wasguarded by the spell which Horus had made for him.

11


" Next day Pharaoh told the chief scribe Horusall that he had seen during the night, and how thefamiliars of the Ethiopian had failed.

" Then Horus the son of Panehsi got a quantityof pure wax ; he made a litter with four bearersout of it ; he spake a spell over tliem ; he breathed



hard upon them, and gave them life, and he saidto them : ' Vou will go to the Iând of the Negroes ;you will bring back the King of the Ethiopiansto Pharaoh's palace ; you will give him a soundbeating, five hundred blows with the courbash inpublic before Pharaoh, and you will carry himback to the Land of the Negroes all in six hours,and not a minute more."

" They answered : ' Truly we will perform allthat thou hast commanded.'

" The familiars travelled swiftly by night on theclouds of heaven to the Land of the Negroes. Theytook possession of the King ; they brought himinto Egypt ; they gave him a sound beating withthe courbash, five hundred blows before the Kingof Egypt ; then they carried him back to theLand of the Negroes, all in six hours, and not aminute more."

Thus spake Senosiris in the midst of the Court


before Pharaoh and his nobles, with the people ofEgypt hearkening, and then he said : " The curseof Amen thy god be upon thee, wicked Ethiopian.Are the words that I speak those which are writtenin this letter ?"

Bowing to the ground, the Ethiopian answered :

" Continue to read, for all that thou hast said is asit is written."

Then Senosiris went on : '* After all this hadhappened, and the King of the Ethiopians wasback in the palace again, he awoke, sore all overfrom the blows which he had received in Egypt.He said to his courtiers, ' What my sorceries didto Pharaoh, the sorceries of Pharaoh have done tome. I have been carried into Egypt, beaten beforePharaoh, and brought back again.' He turned hisback to the courtiers, and, seeing his scars, theymade a great outcry. The King sent for Horus

the Ethiopian magician, and said : ' Beware of theanger of Amen my god ! Let me see how youwill save me from the enchantments of yourEgyptian rival.' The Ethiopian wizard madecharms and fastened them upon the King to savehim ; but the next night he was carried to Egyptand beaten once more, and the same thing hap-




pened the third night. Then the King was veryangry, and said to his wizard : ' Bad luck to you,enemy of Etliiopia ! You have humbled me beforethe Egyptians, and have not been able to save mefrom their hands. By the life of Amen, unlessyou can save me from the spells of the Egyptians,I shall deliver you o\'er to a cruel and lingering

death !'

" ' My lord the King,' said he, ' let me go intoEgypt, that I may see this Egyptian wizard, andwork my magic against him, and punish him forall that he has done.'

" So the King gave him leave to go, and hewent first to his old mother, and told her all thathad happened, and how the King had threatenedhim with a cruel and lingering death unless he wasable to conquer the wizardries of the Egyptianmagician. ' My son,' said she, ' be wise, and do

not go near the place where Horus of Egyptdwells. If you go to Egypt to work magic,beware ; for you cannot conquer the Egyptians,and you will never come back again to the Landof the Negroes.' ' It is of no use to talk in sucha fashion,' said he, 'for I must go.' Then said hismother : ' Since you must go into Egypt, let us


fix upon signals between us, so that if you are

conquered I may come to help you.' ' If I ambeaten,' he said, 'whenever you drink or eat thewater will change to the colour of blood, the foodwill change to the colour of blood, and the sky willchange to the colour of blood before you.'

" So when they had agreed upon these signals,the Ethiopian wizard journeyed into Egypt. Whenhe came into the hall of audience before Pharaoh,he cried with a loud voice, saying : ' Ha ! who isthis that works sorcery against me in the presenceof Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and has brought theKing of Ethiopia into Egypt against his will V

Then Horus the Egyptian wizard stood forth andcried : ' Ha ! thou vile Ethiopian ! Is it not thouwho hast carried Pharaoh my master to the landof Ethiopia and beaten him there ? Yet thoucomest to Egypt saying, " Who works sorceryagainst me ?" By the life of the god of Heliopolis,the gods of Egypt have brought thee here to punishthee I Gather thy courage, for I come againstthee !' Then said the Ethiopian wizard : ' Is thisdog who barks at me he who works magic againstme V



"So saying he spake a spell ; and lo I a flame


burst out in the audience-chamber, and Pharaoh

and the chiefs of* the land of Egypt cried aloud :* Help us, O Horus, chief of the scribes I' Thenthe Egyptian wizard spake a spell, and lo ! a greatrain from the south fell upon the fire, and it wasextinguished in a moment. Then the Ethiopianspake another spell, and lo ! a huge black cloudcame over the audience-chamber, so that no onecould see his neighbour. But the Egyptian wizardrecited a spell towards the sky, and it became clearonce more. The Ethiopian spake a third spell, andlo 1 a great vault of stone two hundred cubits long�and fifty cubits wide rose up over Pharaoh and his�Princes to separate Egypt from its King. Pharaoh

looked up ; he saw the immense vault hangingover his head, and he and all that were with himuttered a great cry of fear. But Horus the Egyptianspake another spell, and behold ! a papyrus boatappeared, and loaded itself with the great vaultof stone and sailed away with it to the LakeMoeris.

" Now, when the vile Ethiopian saw that he couldnot contend with the Egyptian wizard, he madehimself invisible by art magic, thinking to go backto the Land of the Negroes, his own country. But


the Egyptian wizard cast a spell over him, and,behold ! Pharaoh and all his Court saw the van-quished wizard like a loathly bird, ready to flyaway. Horus recited another spell, and cast himdown upon his back with a falconer over him, hisknife in his hand, ready to kill him. Then away inEthiopia the signals which the Ethiopian wizardhad agreed upon with his mother came to pass, andher food and drink changed to the colour of blood.

" At once she changed herself into the form of agoose, and flew towards Egypt, where she hoveredover the palace of Pharaoh, calling loudly to herson. Horus, the Egyptian wizard, looked up tothe sky ; he saw her there, and knew who she was.He spake a spell, and threw her down to the groundwith a falconer standing over her, and threateningher with his knife. Then she changed her shape oncemore, and became again an Ethiopian woman, andbesought the Egyptian wizard, saying : ' Slay us not,O Horus, son of Panehsi ! but pardon our crime.



Only give us a boat to travel in, and we will neverreturn to Egypt.' Horus refused to reverse hisspells unless the wizard and his mother swore bythe gods never to return to Egypt. She raised herhand and swore, and her son also swore, saying :


' I will not return to Egypt until 1,500 years havepassed.' Then the Egyptian reversed his spells ;he gave a boat to the Ethiopian wizard and hismother, and they hastened back to the Land of theNegroes."

Thus spake Senosiris before Pharaoh, while Setnahis father and all the people listened. 'J'hen, turn-ing to the Ethiopian, who bowed with his head tothe ground, he cried to Pharaoh : '' By thy life, mymighty lord, this wretch whom thou seest here is

Horus the Ethiopian wizard, whose wicked acts Ihave recounted. He has not repented him of hisevil; but now that the 1,500 years have passed hehas returned to work sorcery upon Egypt again.And I ! 1 am Horus the Egyptian ! AVhen 1learned in Hades that this vile Ethiopian wascoming to bewitch Egypt, knowing that there wasno scribe in Egypt strong enough to contend withhim, I besought Osiris to let me return to earthagain that I might hinder him from humblingEgypt before Ethiopia. I was born again as theson of Setna for this one end, that I might workwizardry against this filthy Ethiopian who stands

here."

So saying, he spake a spell against the Ethiopian,


and he wrapped him in fire, which straightway con-sumed him in the sight of Pharaoh and all hisCourt. Then Senosiris himself vanished like a shadefrom before Pharaoh and his father Setna, and theysaw him no more. Pharaoh and all his nobles

marvelled exceedingly at what they had seen, say-ing : " Never was there a good scribe or wise manlike Horus, the son of Panehsi ; neither will thereever be another like unto him again." But Setnamourned, and made great lamentation, because hisson had vanished like a shadow. In the fulness oftime his wife bore him another son ; but he neverceased to make offerings to the spirit of Horus theson of Panehsi, who had also been his little sonSenosiris.



12

BOOK IITALES OF TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE

CHAPTER VI

THE STORY OF THE SHIPWRECKED SAILORAND THE TALKING SERPENT

Our next story requires a little bit of explanationto begin with. It was found on an old papyrusroll which is now in one of the museums of Petro-grad, and perhaps part of the story has gone amiss-ing, for at present it begins very abruptly ; but we

can quite well picture what must have gone before.The story is told by one of the officers of anexploring vessel to his chief, the Prince in com-mand of the expedition. The Egyptians, youknow, were really the first African explorers. Solong ago that we can scarcely realize it, they senttheir ships away down the Red Sea to the countrywhich we now call Somaliland. Of course theydidn't call it Somaliland then ; they called it TheDivine Land, or The Land of Ghosts, and they gotall sorts of wonderful things from it incense, and�gold-dust, and giraffes and apes.

93


But besides that, they sent expeditions both byland and river southwards into the Land of Ethio-pia and the Soudan. They called that land TheLand of Wawat, and their expeditions were oftenquite big affairs, lasting many months, and some-times running great risks. More than once a wholeexploring party was cut off by the natives and

never returned, and sometimes the Egyptians hadto send a flying column of armed men downinto the south country to bring back the bodiesof the explorers who had perished, so thatthey might have honourable burial in their owncountry.

\\"ell, then, you are to imagine one of theseexpeditions coming home by river. The greatgalley, gorgeous with scarlet and green and gold,comes flashing round the bends of the river between



the stony Nubian hills, the rowers bending lustilyto their oars because they know that every strokeis bringing them nearer home. In the waist of thegreat ship is piled the cargo gold-dust in bags,�ivory, ebony perhaps a prisoner or two, one of�them, maybe, a little dwarf, whom they are bring-ing down as a present to the Pharaoh. By-and-byhe will be made a jester in the Court, and the King

THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR 95

and his courtiers will laugh at his uncouth dancesand his quaint foreign ways.

Mile after mile the galley swings on, and nowthe great rock of Abu Simbel is passed. Someday a famous Pharaoh will come up here himselfand order that rock to be made into a huge temple.The Egyptian architects will hew away at it till

they have hollowed out the very heart of the cliff,and left it changed into the most wonderful oftemples, in front of which four great statues of thePharaoh, hewn from the solid rock, sit with theirhands on their knees, looking solemnly across theriver. But that will not be for many a long dayyet, and meanwhile there is nothing but the greatrock, bare and frowning and grim.

Still northward the galley swings day by day,until at last the Island of Philae can be seen in thedistance, and the sailors know that they are almostat their journey's end. Behind the island lie the

docks of Shellal, where their ship will moor, andthe familiar thunder of the First Cataract is alreadyin their ears as the vessel rushes onwards with aline of foam at her bows.

On board the vessel everyone is wild with excite-ment and delight at seeing Egyptian soil again


after so long a journey everyone except one man.�

He lies under the awning in the gaily decoratedlittle cabin at the stern of the ship, arid his heartis very heavy. To-day his men will reach homeand be at the end of all their toils and troubles ;but his are only begiruiing. He has still to makea long journey down the river to Pharaoh's Court,and at tlie end of it he will have to make his reportto the King. Perhaps he knows that the report isnot too favourable ; for some think that one of theships of the expedition had been lost, or perhapsthe cargo is not so good as was expected.



But even if he can report a most successfuljourney, he knows perfectly well that he will haveno peace till the terrible interview with Pharaohis over, for Pharaoh is God ; to enter his presenceis a terror. If he is angry with his servants, hisanger is a consuming fire ; and the Prince, as helies in his cabin, feels that he would rather face the

Nubian bows and spears a dozen times over thanface " the good God " who is waiting to hear hisstory. So he lies tossing to and fro on his couchin the cabin, wondering whether his fate will befavourable or the reverse. If he makes a goodimpression with his report, or finds Pharaoh in a

OUR SHIP WENT DOWN "


good humour, he may get promotion, and havea gold collar put round his neck by the King's ownhand ; but if he does not happen to please the King,well, he knows what the upshot of that is likely tobe banishment to some miserable frontier-station�on tlie eastern desert will be the least of it. Oh, ifit were only all over, and he knew wliat liis fate wasto be!

In the midst of all his misery there comes in the

ship-captain to make his report. He is an oldsailor who has grown grey in the royal service,and has himself commanded smaller expeditionsboth on the river and on the Red Sea ; so, whenhe saw his chief looking utterly miserable, he knewperfectly what was the matter. He had been therehimself, and knew what it was to have the reportto Pharaoh hanging over one's head. So it cameinto his mind that he would try to cheer up hischief by telling him a story of his own adventures,and of the wonders that had befallen him. I daresay the Prince was in no great mood to listen tostories ; but he might as well let the old sailor talk

as lie there eatin"; his own heart out. So he sifjnedto the captain that he could speak, and this is whattlie old man said :

13

98 WONDER TALF^S OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

" Good luck, Prince ! Behold, we have reached



home. They have taken the mallet and dri\'en inthe mooring-post, and the ship's cable has beenpassed ashore. The crew is shouting and praisingGod, each man embracing his neighbour, and thecrowd is shouting ' Good luck ' to us. Withoutany loss among our soldiers we have reached theend of the Land of AVawat, we have passed theIsland of Sen-mut, and now, see, we have come

back in peace, and are in our own country. Listento me. Prince, for I am talking simple sense with-out exaggeration. Pluck up heart, wash yourself,and pour water on your fingers. Then, when youare called to speak, answer the King like a manwith a good heart in you. Reply to him withoutlosing your head ; for a man's speech either saveshim or condemns him. Follow your own goodsense, and may your speech be pleasing in the earsof Pharaoh.

" Hearken, now, to me, and I shall tell you thestory of a similar adventure which happened to

myself. I was going to the Royal IMines, and Iwent down on the Great Green Sea in a vesselof one hundred and fifty cubits long and fortycubits broad. She carried one hundred and fifty


sailors, the very pick of all the land of Egypt, menwho were both weather-wise and war- wise, and whowere bolder than lions. They were sure that therewould be no storm, and that no harm would come

to us ; but the tempest burst upon us while wewere in mid-ocean, and before we could sight landthe increasing wind had raised enormous waves.Our ship went down, and not one soul of the crewwas saved except myself.

" I managed to seize a plank, and by good fortunea great wave washed me ashore upon an island.I passed three days alone, with no other companionthan my own heart. Night by night I slept in thefork of a tree, and day by day I sallied out in searchof something to eat. I found figs and grapes,magnificent pears, berries and grain, melons in

abundance, fish and birds there was nothing�wanting that heart could desire. I satisfied myself,and left lying on the ground what was over of theabundance with which my hands had been filled.1 made a fire-drill, I lighted a fire, and I made anoffering to the gods.

" Suddenly I heard a voice like thunder, and Ithought, ' It is a great wave of the sea.' The treesgroaned, the earth trembled, I uncovered my face.




and looked round. Behold, a great serpent wasdrawing near ! He was thirty cubits long, and hada beard more than two cubits in length ; his bodywas overlaid with pure gold, his eyebrows were

of true lapis-lazuli, and his form was even moreperfect than his face. I flung myself on my faceand made salaam before liim, and, towering overme, he opened his mouth and spake, saying :' What has brought thee here, what has broughtthee here, little one, what has brought thee ? Ifthou dost not tell me speedily what has broughtthee to this isle, 1 shall quickly show thee, byburning thee to ashes, what it is to becomeinvisible.'

" So he spake, and I hearkened without under-standing ; I was before him like a man without

sense. Then he took me up in his mouth, hecarried me to his lair, and he set me down therewithout any hurt. I was safe and sound, and noharm had been done to an}^ of my limbs.

" Then once more he opened his mouth whileI lay on my face before him, and this is whathe said to me : ' What has brought thee, what hasbrought thee, little one, to this isle of the sea,whose two shores are washed by the waves ?'


" With my hands hanging down before him, IrepHed : ' I was going to the Royal Mines on amission of the King in a ship of one hundredand fifty cubits long by forty cubits broad.She carried one hundred and fifty sailors, thepick of tlie Land of Egypt ; they were bothweather-wise and war-wise, and they were bolderof heart than lions. They were sure that therewould be no storm, and that no disaster wouldhappen to us ; each one was stronger of arm andbraver of heart than his neighbour, and there were

no cowards among them. But the storm burstupon us while we were on the open sea, and beforewe could reach the land tlie gale increased, andraised enormous waves. 1 snatched a plank ; but,as for the ship, she perished, and of the crew notone survived but myself alone, who am now herebefore thee. And as for me, it was only by thegood fortune of being washed up by a wave that Igot to land.'

" He answered me : ' Fear not, little one, fear



not, and do not wear so sad a face ! If you havecome to me, it is because the gods have allowedyou to live, and have brought you to this Island ofthe Blest, where nothing is lackino-, and which is


filled with all sorts of good things. Now, hehold,you shall puss month after month, until you havespent four months on this island. Then a ship willcome, with sailors of your own people ; you will gohome with them, and you will die in your owntown.

" ' Now, it is a pleasure to talk about one's ownexperience, when once the sadness is past ; so Ishall tell you the exact story of what is in this isle.I was here with my brethren and my children, in themidst of them ; we numbered seventy-five serpents,

my children and my brethren, without countinga young girl who was brought here by art magic.For, a star having fallen from heaven, those whowere in the fire with the girl perished, even all mycompanions ; and, though I could not come nearto the fire lest I should be destroyed, I found herafterwards Ipng among the dead bodies. But nowshe is dead, and all my brethren are dead, and I amalone. Now, if you are brave and of a stout heart,you shall yet clasp your children to your bosom,you shall embrace your wife, you shall see yourown house ; and, best of all, you shall return toyour own land and live among your own people.'

" Then 1 cast myself on my face and made


salaam, and I said to him : ' I shall describe yourHighness's being to my Sovereign ; I shall makehim understand your greatness, and I shall send toyou ointment, holy oils, perfumes, cassia, and thesacred incense with which men seek the favourof the gods. I shall recount what has happened to

me, and what I have seen of thy wonderful nature,and they shall adore thee in my town in presenceof all the mighty men of the earth. I shall slay forthee bulls in burnt-offering, I shall slay birds forthee, and I shall send thee ships laden with all thetreasures of Egypt, as one would do to a god whois the friend of man in a distant and unknownland.'

" He laughed at what I said, and, chuckling athis own thought, he answered me : ' Is there not



plenty of myrrh under your eyes, and abundance ofincense on every hand ? For, as for me, I am Lordof the Land of Ghosts, and I have myrrh in plenty ;only this holy oil which you talk of is not commonin this island. But do not think that you will eversee this isle again ; for, as soon as you have left it,it will be transformed into waves once more.'

" Now, behold, even as he had predicted, thevessel came after four months : and when I saw

104 WONDER TALES OE THE ANCIENT WORLD

her in the distance I ran and cHmbed a high tree,and I recognized the sailors. Tlien I went to tellthe news to my good friend, the serpent ; but Ifound that he knew of it already, for he said to me :

* Good luck, good luck, little one ! Return to your

dwelling-place, behold your children, and may yourname be good in your town ; these are my wishesfor you.'

" Then I cast myself on my face, and madesalaam before him, and he gave me gifts of myrrh,of perfume, of ointment, of cassia, of pepper, ofantimony, of cypress, much incense, courbashes ofhippopotamus-tail, ivory, greyhounds, apes, giraffes,and all excellent treasures. I loaded the wholeupon the ship ; then once more I cast myself uponmy face, and adored the serpent. He said to me,

* Behold, in two months you will arrive at yourown land, you will press your children to yourheart, and, afterwards, in a good old age you willgo to inherit new life in your tomb.'

" So then I went down to the shore where theship lay, and I called the soldiers who were onboard. I rendered adoration on the shore to themaster of the island, and those who were mth meon the ship did likewise. We returned to the

'BEHOLD. A GREAT SEKl'ENT WAS IJKAWING NEAR!" (p. 100)�


north, to the palace of the King, arriving there thesecond month, even as the serpent had said. Iobtained audience of Pharaoh, and I offered to himthe presents which I had brought from the en-



chanted island, and he honoured me in presenceof the mighty men of the Double Kingdom.Behold he made me liis personal attendant, and,for a reward of my labour, I received a number ofhandsome slaves. Look upon me now that I havecome back to the land of Egypt, having passedthrough such hazards ; and take my advice, for itis a good thing for men to hearken unto wise

counsel."

But the Prince would not listen ; he said wearily :" Do not be a fool, my friend ; does anyone givewater to a goose the night before it is killed ?"

Thus it is finished, from the beginning to theend, as it has been found in tlie writings. He whohas written it is the swift -fingered scribe, Ameny-Amenu (life, health, strength !).

14

CHAPTER VII

THE ADVENTURES OF SINUHE

Tin: story which follows differs from the otherswhich we have to recount (with the possible excep-tion of the tale of the capture of Joppa) in this,that it bears all the marks of being an absolutelytrue story. It gives a picture of Egyptian and

Syrian life in the great period of the TwelfthDynasty, when Egypt reached a height of powerand splendour scarcely surpassed in her later days.The old King who dies at the beginning of thestory is the Pharaoh Amenemhat I., and the Kingwho succeeds him is Senusert I., a famous soldierof those old days. Why Sinuhe was so terrifiedwhen he heard of the old King's death is rather apuzzle. It is possible that he may have beenclosely connected with the royal family in some wayor other, and may have been afraid that the newKing might look upon him as a possible rival,and might thmk it advisable to get rid of him.

106

THE ADVENTURES OF SINUHE 107

A general slaughter of brothers and other nearrelations has never been thought an out-of-the-wayact on the part of a newly enthroned Oriental King,but rather a reasonable and prudent precaution.



Or perhaps Sinuhe may have known that he hadan enemy in the new King, and while he felt him-self safe so long as the old Pharaoh was alive, hemay have feared what might happen when hisprotector was dead.

Possibly some day an explorer may light uponthe actual tomb that the wanderer was so proud

of; and we may learn how it was that he was sofrightened, and why, even when he came back toEgypt, he had to leave his family behind him inPalestine. Meanwhile he has left us a very usefuland interesting picture of life in the East, not verylong before the days of Abraham. We see theEgyptian fugitive with his higher training andgreater skill in war, taking at once a leader's placeamong the Syrian tribesmen ^just as an English-�man might do in Africa while his single combat�with the Syrian champion is quite in the style ofDavid and Goliath. Then we see the Egyptian'spassionate yearning for his native land, and, what

seems strange to us, the manner in which he


counted it absolutely unbearable that he shouldliave to be buried in a foreign country without allthe funeral ceremonies on which the people of theNile Valley laid such stress. And when theyearning has conquered the dread which he stillhad of the enmity of Senusert, and the fugitive iswelcomed back to the Court with every mark of

honour and regard, we see how overwhelming wasthe awe which was felt by a loyal Egyptian whenhe came into the presence of the Pharaoh, who, tohim, was God manifest in the flesh. Altogetherthere is no piece of ancient Egyptian literaturewhich gives a fresher or more vivid picture of themanners and customs of those far-off days than thestory of the Adventures of Sinuhe.

The hereditary Prince, the King's servant, theSole Friend, administrator of the royal domains,and Keeper of the Gate of the Desert, the true andbeloved royal acquaintance Sinuhe, saith :

"As for me, 1 am the attendant of my master,servant of the household of the hereditary PrincessNeferit, the feudal chieftainess, the royal daughterof Amenemhat. On the seventh day of the thirdmonth of the season Akhet, in the thirtieth year of




his reign, the god entered his horizon, the KingSehotepabra flew up to heaven, and was united tothe Solar disc, the members of the god were joinedto Him Who had created them. (All this high-flownlanguage simply signifies that King Amenemhat I.died.) Behold the place was in silence, all heartsmourned ! the double Great Gate was shut andsealed, the courtiers crouched with head on knees,

and the people lamented.

" Now, it was so that His Majesty had sent agreat host to the land of the Libyans, and his eldestson, the good god Senusert (life, health, strength !),was in command. He had been sent to smite theforeign lands and to subdue the Libyan tribes, andnow he was returning, bringing Libyan prisonersand numberless cattle of all kinds. The councillorsof the palace had sent messengers westwards to tellthe Prince of what had happened in the royal hall.The messengers found him by night on the march,for the matter was urgent. The Hawk soared

with his followers without saying aught to thehost ; even the royal Princes who were with thearmy were commanded not to breathe a word ofwhat had taken place." (The Hawk is the newKing Senusert, who hastens secretly with his body-

no WONDER TALES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

guard to the palace to secure the throne againstany possible claimant.)

" But it came to pass that I was standing near,and I heard liis voice as he spake. Then I fled,for my heart wellnigh burst, my arms were power-less, fear fell upon all my members, and I ran hitherand thither seeking a place wherein to hide me.Slipping between two thickets that I might get offthe beaten track, I journeyed southwards ; but Idid not dream of returning to the palace, for 1knew not but that civil war might already havebroken out there. I called down no blessing onthe royal house, but I turned towards the districtof the Sycamore. I reached the Isle of Seneferu,and I passed the day there in a field ; at the next

dawn I started again and fared onwards. I over-took a man by the wayside, and he cried me mercy,for I was terrible to behold. Towards evening Icame to the town of Xekau, and I crossed the riveron a rudderless raft, helped by the west wind.Then I travelled eastwards by the quarries of Akuand the land of the goddess Herit, Lady of the RedMountain.

" Turning now towards the north, I reached theRoyal Wall, built to keep back and to control




the desert tribes ; and lest I should be seen bythe guards upon the wall, I kept myself hiddenall day in a thicket. When night came, I set out

once more, and by the dawn of the next day Ireached Peten, and rested in the defile of Kamur.Then thirst fell upon me and overwhelmed me. Ifainted ; my throat was parched ; already I said inmy soul, ' Verily this is the taste of death,' whensuddenly I lifted up my heart again and gatheredmy strength I had heard the noise of a caravan.�The Arabs noticed me, and one of their chiefs, whohad been in Egypt, recognized me. Behold, hegave me water, and caused milk to be boiled forme ; then I went with him and his tribe, and onetribe passed me on to another. I turned awayfrom the land of Sunu and reached the land of

Edom, where I dwelt for a year and a half.

" Then the chief Ammianshi, who is the Princeof the Upper Tenu, sent for me to come to himself,and said : ' Thou wilt be happy with me, for thoucanst hear the speech of Egypt in this place.' Thishe said because he knew who I was, and what wasmy quality ; for some of the Egyptians who dweltin the land with me had testified to him concerningme. Tlierefore he spake thus unto me : ' Where-


fore hast thou come hither ? ^Vhat had come topass ? Was it that the King Amenemhat, Lordof the Two Lands, had died, and thou didst notknow what might he the result of his death V

*' Then I answered him with guile : ' Verily,w^hen 1 was returning with the host from the landof the Libyans, 1 heard a report. JNIy heart failedme, and drew me forth into the desert paths. Ihave not been accused, no one has blackened myface, I have had no fellowship with evil-doers, and

my name has never been spoken by the mouthof the herald. What has brought me to this landI know not ; perhaps it was the will of God.'

" Then said Ammianshi : ' What will becomeof the land of Egypt without that beneficentgod, the terror of whose name spreads amongforeign nations like that of the goddess Sekhetin a year of plague ?"

" Then I uttered my mind to him and spake





dream. He has been created to smite the desertrovers and to crush the rulers of the sands. If heshould send his hosts hither, may thy name bepleasing in his sight, and curse not the King lesthe hear of it ! For he is rich in mercy and good-ness to the lands which submit to him.'

" Then the chief of Tenu answered : ' ^êrily

Egypt is a happy land in that she knoweth theprime vigour of her Prmce. As for thee, abidewith me, and I shall do thee good.' He gave me

THE ADVExNTURES OF SINUHE 115

rank before his own children ; he gave me hiseldest daughter to wife, and he allowed me tochoose for my own possession the very best landwhich he possessed, on the border of a neighbouringland. It is indeed a goodly land ; laa is its name.

There are found figs and grapes in plenty. Wineis more abundant than water, honey and oilabound, and the trees are laden with all kindsof fruit. There is no end to tlie wheat and barley,and the cattle are without number. Great werethe honours that were bestowed upon me, for thePrince himself came on my behalf and set me upas chief of one of the best tribes of his land. Everyday bread and wine were brought to me, boiledand roast meat and fowl, besides the game of theland ; for every day the tribe hunted on myaccount, besides what my own greyhounds broughtin. Food of all sorts was prepared for me, and

milk cooked in various fashions. Thus I spentmany years ; my children became mighty men,each one leader of his clan. The messenger whocame from the North towards Egypt, or whoreturned from Egypt by the South road, tarriedat my tent, for I welcomed every wayfarer. Igave water to the thirsty ; I set the wanderer on

lU) WONDEU TALES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

the rifrht way ; 1 delivered him who iiad been

spoiled. When the bowmen were sent to conquerthe rebel Princes of the land, I ordered their march,for the chief of Tenu made me for many yearscaptain of his host. W^lienever I marched againsta land the people trembled in their pastures by thewells. I carried off their cattle ; I led captive theirservants ; I took their slaves ; I slew their men.By my sword and my bow, my swift marches andmy well-laid plans, I won the heart of the Prince,and when once he had learned my valour and thevigour of my arm, he loved me, and made me first



of all his children.

" Behold, a certain mighty man of Tenu came,and challenged me in my tent ; he was a championwho had no equal in the land, for he had conqueredthe whole of Tenu. Being urged on by his tribe,he said that he would contend with me ; he pur-posed in his heart to plunder me, and he boasted

loudly that he would take possession of my flocksand herds. Ammianshi took counsel with meconcernhig the matter, and I said : ' 1 have noknowledge of the man, and verily I am no friendof his. Have I ever opened his door, or brokeninto his enclosure ? This is pure jealousy on his

THE ADVENTURES OF SINUHE IIT

part, because he knows that I am your captain.God be my guard, for I am Hke a bull in the midst

of his cows when a young bull from without rushesupon him to take them for himself. Is he a bullgreedy of battle, a chosen bull who loves to giveblow for blow ? Then if he has a heart to fight,let him speak his mind ! Is God who knoweth allignorant of what He hath foreordained V

" I spent the night in stringing my bow, pre-paring my arrows, unsheathing my dagger, andmaking ready my harness. When the day dawned,the whole land of Tenu came together ; for he hadforeseen this combat, and had gathered the men ofhis tribe and summoned the neighbouring lands.

When the mighty man came, I rose and wentforth to meet him. All hearts burned for me ;men and women uttered cries, and all were anxiouson my behalf, saying : ' Is there indeed any otherchampion strong enough to contend with him VBehold, he grasped his buckler, his spear, and hisjavelins, ready for the fray. When he had triedall his weapons in vain against me, and I hadturned aside his javelins so that they struck theearth harmlessly on this side and on that, he rushedupon me ; then I drew my bow against him, and


as my arrow pierced his throat, he gave a loud cry,and fell upon his face. I made an end of him withhis own hattleaxe ; 1 stood upon his back, andshouted my cry of victory, and all the tribesmenshouted with joy. Then I gave thanks to Mentuthe War-god, while the friends of the vanquishedmourned over him, and Prince Ammianshi claspedme in his arms. Behold, I took possession of all



the goods of the fallen champion ; I carried off hiscattle, and all that he had wished to do to me thatdid I to him. I took all that was in his tent ; Iplundered his village and enriched myself with thespoil, and increased the number of my cattle.

" Thus, then, hath God shown himself graciousto him who was forced to flee into a strange land,

so that now my heart rejoices. Once I was afugitive, and now they speak well of me at theCourt of Egj^t ; once I was a wanderer, wanderingabout half dead with hunger, and now I havebread to give to my neighbour. Once in miseryI fled from my land in nakedness, and now I haveabundance of garments of fine linen ; once I hadto run my own errands because I had no one tosend, and now I have many vassals. JNly house isfine, my estate is large ; I am remembered at the


royal palace. O ye gods, who have ordered myflight, be gracious unto me ; bring me back to thepalace ; grant me to see once more the place of myheart's desire ! How great my happiness, if mybody may lie at last in the land where I was born !May my good fortune abide with me still ; maythe Good God (Pharaoh) grant me peace. Mayhe have compassion on the man whom he hasforced to live in a foreign land. Is not his angeragainst me now appeased ? Let him hearken untothe man who beseeches him from a far land, and

let him turn his heart towards him whom he hasoverwhelmed. May the King of Egypt be favour-able unto me ; so shall I live by his gifts ; so shallI watch over the goods of the Queen of the Landwho is in his palace, and hear the greetings of herchildren. Ah, to be young again ! for now oldage draws nigh ; weakness hath possessed me.Mine eyes are heavy ; my arms hang down ; mylegs are feeble ; my heart faileth. Death drawethnear to me, and soon I shall be carried to theEternal City and become a follower of the Ladyof Death !

" Now, behold, when mention of my affairs hadbeen made to His Majesty the King Kheperkara


(Senusert L), whose word is truth, His Majestycondescended to send ine a message with royalgifts to rejoice my heart, gifts such as are given tothe Princes of foreign lands, and the Princes of the



Blood Royal sent me their greeting.

" Copy of the Royal Ordei' which ivas broîght tothy servant concerning his ixcall to Egypt.

'"The Horus, the life of lives, the Lord of the RedCrown and the AVhite, life of lives, King of Upperand Lower Egypt, Kheperkara, Son of the Sun,

living for ever and ever ! An order of the King forthe vassal Sinuhe I Behold, this order of the Kingcometh to thee that thou mayest learn his will con-cerning thee. Thou hast traversed strange landsfrom Qetem to Tenu, and hast gone from one landto another following only the counsel of thine ownwill. What hast thou gained thereby ? Do notargue with my messengers, for thy words shall notbe hearkened unto, and do not discuss this businesswith my councillors, for thy words shall be setaside. As for me, there is no ill-will in my hearttowards thee. The Queen, who is thy Heaven,abides and flourishes in the Palace, her head is

exalted above the Queens of the earth, and her


children are with her hi the inner chambers of theGreat House.

" ' Come thou therefore into Egypt, and see oncemore the home of thy birth, make sahiam beforethe Great Gate, and join thyself to the King'sfriends. For, behold, old age is now creeping upon

thee ; thy strength faileth, and thy thoughts turnto the day when the wrappings shall be put aroundthee [the mummy-cloths], and to thy journey toeternal bliss. The oils for thine embalmment andthe mummy-swathings have already been assignedfor thee by the hand of Tait. Thy funeral pro-cession hath already been arranged, and a gildedcoffin, the head whereof is painted blue, hath beenprepared, together with a canopy to cover thefuneral sledge. Oxen shall draw thee to thy grave,singing-women shall wait before thee, funerary-dances shall be performed at the door of thy tomb ;the prayers of the tables of offerings shall be said for

thee, sacrifices shall be slain for thee beside thyfuneral pillars, and thy pyramid shall be built ofwhite stone side by side with those of the Princesof the Blood. Thou shalt not die in a strange land,neither shall the people of the Aamu lead thee tothy grave, nor shalt thou be wrapped in a sheepskin

16



V2'2 WONDER TALES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

when thy funeral vault is made ; but when thouhast eome back hither there shall be amends for allthe affliction that has gone over thee.'

" When this order came to me I was abiding intlic midst ol' my own folk. As soon as it was read

to me, 1 threw myself on my face, and bowed withmy liead in the dust : then in the joy of my heartI walked to and fro in my dwelling, saying: ' Is itof a truth possible that such things shall be doneunto me, even me, whom my heart hath led intostrange lands ? Beautiful verily is the compassionof the King which delivereth me from death ! Forthe King's spirit will allow me to end my days inmine own land.'

" Then I returned unto the Majesty of the Kingof Egypt an answer praising his goodness and hismercy towards me, and giving thanks to him for

his goodness in allowing me to return to mine ownland. Then I celebrated a feast-day in the land ofAia and divided my goods among my children ;my eldest son became chief of my clan, and theclan and all my property came under his authority,my vassals, all my cattle, my crops, and my date-palms. Then I journeyed southwards, and when I


arrived at Zaru the General in command of the

frontier guard sent an orderly to the royal palacefor instructions. His Majesty sent a courteousoverseer of the royal household, and with himseveral barges full of gifts from the King for theArabs who had come along with me to guide meto Zaru. I bade them good-bye, calling each oneby his own name, and giving to each who hadtoiled for me his own share. Then I voyagedonwards, and food and drink and apparel wereprovided for me until I arrived at the royal city ofThet-taui.

" Now, behold, when the next day dawned, I

was summoned, a guard of ten men appeared toconduct me to the palace. I bowed to the earthbefore the Great Gate, then the Princes of theBlood wlio were loitering in the anteroom came tomeet me, and the courtiers who were ordered tolead me to the audience-chamber brought me intothe presence of the King. 1 found His Majestyseated upon the Great Throne, on the dais of elec-trum ; I cast myself prostrate before him, and mysenses left me. The Good God (Pharaoh) spakegently to me, but I was like a man bewildered in



the twilight ; my spirit failed, my limbs refused tlieir

124 WOxNDER TALES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

office, my heart stood still, and I felt neither alivenor dead. His JNLajesty said to one of the courtiers:

' Uaise him, and let him speak.' Tiien said HisINIajesty: * Beliold thou art come, then, who didstonce take to fiiglit, and who hast wandered inforeign lands. Old age hath come upon thee, andit is a comfort to tliee that tiiy hody shall be em-balmed, and that the barbarians shall not carrythee to thy grave. Refuse not to speak when thouart questioned.' Then I trembled for fear ofpunishment, and I answered like a man in dread :' What hath my lord now said ? Lo, this is myanswer. This befell not by my own deed, but bythe will of God. My present dread is even as thedread which caused my flight. Behold me in thy

presence. Thou art Life ; let thy Majesty do ac-cording to his good pleasure.'

" Then the royal children passed before me, andHis Majesty said to the Queen : ' See, here isSinuhe, who has come like an Asiatic, looking likea regular desert- warrior.' She broke into loudlaughter, and all the royal children burst outlaughing together before the King, saying with onevoice : ' Nay verily, O Lord King, this cannot behe !' But His JNIajesty said : 'In truth it is he !'


Then the Princesses took their cymbals, their casta-nets, and their sistra, and they danced and sangbefore His Majesty, speaking thus to him :

" ' Thy hands, O King, do mercifully ; may theblessing of the Queen of Heaven abide upon thee.The Golden Goddess gives life to thy nostrils, theLady of the Stars unites herself to thee, as thouvoyagest to the North wearing the Southern crownand to the South wearing the crown of the North,

and with the Asp upon thy brow. Thy bow isstrong, and thine arrow slayeth ! Give breath,therefore, to him who is afflicted, and grant thisgreat boon to our entreaty on behalf of this chiefSinuhe, this Bedawy, who yet was born in Egypt !'" Then said His Majesty : 'Let him fear nolonger, neither cry out in dread. He shall be anofficer of the royal household, and take his placeamong those who stand around the throne. Gowith him to the dining-hall, and see that food isprovided for him.'



" When I went forth from the audience-chamber the royal Princes took me by the hand,and we passed on to the Great Gate. I was lodgedin the house of a royal Prince, richly furnished,with its bathroom, its ceilings painted like the

UG WONDER TAL?:S OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

heavens, its furnituie sent from tlie Double WhiteHouse (the royal treasury), clotliin^' IVorn theroyal wardrobe, and choice perfumes. Eachroom was in charj^c of a chosen royal official,attending to his own j)urticular duties. Then Icast off the years from my limbs, I shaved myselfand dressed my hair, I washed off the dirt of theforeign land, and threw aside tlie clothing of thedesert wanderer. I dressed me in fine linen, Ianointed nie with chosen ointments, I slept upon a

bed, and I left the sand to those who li\ e upon it,and cedar-oil to those who like the use of it.

" There was allotted to me the house of a noble-man ; many bricklayers toiled in the building of it,all its woodwork was renewed, and delicacies werebrought to me from the royal palace three andfour times a day, besides what the l^rinces of theBlood were continually giving me. There wasfounded for me a stone pyramid amidst the pyra-mids, the royal quarry-master chose the site for it,the chief designer designed its decorations, thechief sculptor carved them, and the clerks of works

attached to the cemetery scoured the country tomake the furnishing of its store-chambers complete.Priests for my spirit were appointed, and all the


funerary equipment was provided. I made all thenecessary appointments for the upkeep of thepyramid, acquired land around it, and establisheda funerary endowment suitable to a lloyal Friendof the first rank. His JNlajesty caused my statue

to be made. It was overlaid with gold, and thekilt thereof was of electrum (gold-silver alloy).Not for any common man would such things bedone ! May 1 enjoy the favour of the King untilthe day of my death shall come !" Thus the bookis finished from the beginning to the end, as it hathbeen found in the writing.

CHArTER VIII



HOW TAHUTI TOOK THE TOWN OF JOPPA

We have all read and delighted in the story of AliBaba and the Forty Thieves, and, above all, thepart of the story where the Captain of the thievesbrings his men into Ali Baba's courtyard in tiie oil-jars, and finds his clever stratagem defeated by the

cumiing and bravery of Morgiana. Now, here is astory of Ancient Egypt, quite possibly a true storyin its main outlines, which, almost beyond a doubt,was the original fountam fi'om which the idea ofthe robber-chief's oil-jars flowed. It is not, per-haps, a very great story, viewed as a story ; but asyou read it you wîll see how remarkably Tahuti'sstratagem resembled that of the Captain of theForty Thieves with this exception, that Tahuti�wâs entirely successful.

Before we begin the story, let me tell you thatthe Egyptians concerned in it are real historical

people. The King, Menkheperra, is the great con-

128

HOW TAHUTI TOOK THE TOWN OF JOPPA 129

queror, Thothmes III., the greatest soldier thatEgypt ever bred. He was both a brave man and askilful general, and Egyptian history becomes quiteinteresting at the point where the King, in oppositionto the timid advice of all his Captains, himself leads

his army in single file through the pass of Aaruna,in Palestine, and then scatters the whole army ofthe Syrian League, whicli had gathered at Megiddoto oppose him, by the mere dash and fury of hischarge. Tahuti was one of the best and mosttrusted generals of this great soldier. Curiouslyenough, some relics of the crafty old veteran arelying to-day in some of the great museums ofEurope. His dagger, perhaps the very one thathe wore as he talked with " the Foe in Joppa," isat Darmstadt, and one of his funeral vases is atLeyden.

Most splendid and most interesting of all, be-cause it tells us how much King Thothmes valuedthis ftiithful soldier, is the great gold salver, whichnow lies in the Louvre at Paris. It was given bythe King, when the old soldier died, that it mightbe placed in his tomb and used by his spirit ; andthese words are written on it : " Given in praise bythe King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menkhe-

17




perra, to the hereditary chief, the divine father, thebeloved by God, satisfying the heart of the King inall foreign lands, and in the isles in the midst ofthe Great Sea, filling stores with lapis-lazuli, silver-

gold, and gold, Keeper of all foreign lands. Keeper ofthe troops, praised by the Good Lord of both landsand his Double the royal scribe Tahuti, deceased."�So now we are to hear of one of the deeds bywhich the wily old soldier and scribe satisfied theheart of his King by the shores of the Great Sea,and if it does not seem to you anything very greatas a story, remember that, but for it, you mightnever have had tlie best part of the story of yourold friend Ali Baba. The idea of a fortress beingtaken by soldiers who are smuggled into it in oneway or another is a very old one ; but it is worthwhile noticing that this is the oldest of all such

stories, and belongs to a considerably earlier periodthan even that of the AVooden Horse of Troy.The fragments of the story are found on a papyrusroll, now lying in the British Museum, on whichis also found the story of the Doomed Prince.All that has been added to it in the present versionis a small introduction to make the beginning ofthe story intelligible.


Now, it came to pass that in the land of Egyptthere reigned a great King whose name was Menk-heperra. He ruled in great power and glory overthe Two Lands, and when he went forth to war,either against the vile Asiatics or the vile sons ofKush, they fell down in heaps before the chariotof His Majesty. Now, among the soldiers ofMenkheperra, whose hearts were braver than lions,there was a general of infantry called Taliuti. Hefollowed King jNI enkheperra in all his wars, whetherin the North or the South ; and everywhere heapproved himself an excellent soldier, strong andof a good courage in the day of battle, and cunning

to bring skilful devices to pass against the enemy.More than once His Majesty, with his own hand,gave to Tahuti " the gold of valour " before thewhole army ; for he was a mighty man of valour,who had not his equal in all the land.

Now, behold, it came to pass in those daysthat a messenger came from the land of Kharu(Palestine), and brought an evil report unto HisMajesty, saying : " The Governor of the North-land has sent me unto thy INIajesty, saying, ' The



Foe in Joppa has revolted against His Majesty,and has slain the spearmen and the charioteers of

132 WONDER TALES OF THE AxNCIENT WORLD

His Majesty, and, behold, we are not suflicient to

light against him.'"

Then His Majesty, when he heard these words,became furious as a panther of the South, and hecalled together tlie chicl' of the whole land his�Princes, his rulers, and his mighty men of valour.Then said His ]\Iajesty to them : " Behold, howthis vile Asiatic lias arisen against my Majesty !Whom shall we send, and wlio will go for us, thathe may cause the Foe in Joppa to smell the groundbefore my Majesty, and may destroy his city ?"

Then tlie General Tahuti arose and made

salaam, and spake on tliis fashion to His Majesty :** O thou who art the Good God of Both Lands,in whose beams L^pper and Lower Egypt rejoiceevery day, 1 wdll go for thee to bring down thepride of the high looks of this vile Asiatic ; onlylet it be done unto me on this wise : Let the greatleading staff of Menkheperra, in whose name ispower, be given unto me for a season ; let therebe given unto me also spearmen and bowmen andcharioteers, the best of the mighty men of thearmy of Egypt ; then shall I slay this Foe in Joppa,and I shall take his city."

Then said His JNIajesty : "What thou hast spoken


is good in mine eyes ; be it done according as thouhast said."

Now, after many days, Tahuti came with his hostunto the land of Kharu ; neither at this time didhe purpose to fight against the Foe in Joppa, butrather to take him by guile. Therefore he made

ready a gi-eat sack of leather, large enough to holda man, and he caused the smiths of the army tomake many fetters for the feet and manacles forthe hands ; he caused them also to make one greatset of irons with four rings, and many woodenstocks for the necks of men, and, chief of all, twohundred great earthen vessels. Then, when allthings were now ready, he sent a messenger untothe Foe in Joppa, saying : " Now, when this is comeunto thee, know that 1 am Tahuti, Captain of thehost of the land of Egypt, and I have followed the



King of Egypt in all his wars. But now, be-hold, the King JMenkheperra hath indignation andjealousy towards me because of my great deeds ;therefore I have fled from before his face, and I havecarried away the great leading staff of His Majesty,in whose name is power, and I have hidden it inthe forage of my horses. Now, therefore, let usspeak with one another face to face in the field.


and if thou wilt, I will give thee the leading staffof Pharaoh ; and I, and all the men who are withme, even the best of all the mighty men of valourin Egypt, will fight for thee."

Now, when the Foe in Joppa heard this saying,he rejoiced exceedingly because of the wordswhich Tahuti had spoken. Therefore he sent unto

Tahuti, saying : " Let it be as thou hast said, andthe gods do so unto me and more also if I makethee not as my brother, and give thee not the bestof the land of Joppa !"

So the Foe in Joppa came out from the city withhis charioteer, and with many of the women andchildren of the city ; and he came face to face withTahuti. Then Tahuti took him by the hand, andembraced him, and caused him to enter into hiscamp ; but in his guile Tahuti had pitched his tentat a distance from the tents of his men, that so thecompanions of the Foe in Joppa might not see nor

hear what befell their Prince. And while the Foein Joppa ate and drank along with Tahuti,the men that were with him drank and weredrunken along with the soldiers of Egypt.

Now, when they had well drunk, then said theFoe in Joppa unto Tahuti : " Now, as touching this


great leading-staff of Menkheperra, of which thou

hast spoken unto me, where is it ? For my heartis set upon seeing it, and if thou showest it to methou shalt do well." Now, Tahuti had hidden theleading-staff of Menkheperra in the forage of hishorses, and the forage was in baskets, even as theforage of the chariot -horses of the host of Egyptwas wont to be carried. Therefore, when the Foein Joppa had spoken on this wise, Tahuti answeredhim : " If thou wilt, I shall cause my men to bringin the baskets of forage, and thou shalt see thegreat leading-staff of His Majesty the King of



Upper and Lower Egypt, Menkheperra." Then thesoldiers of Tahuti came in, bearing the baskets offorage ; and the eyes of the Foe in Joppa wereblinded by his heart's desire, so that he could notsee how he was falling into the pit which Tahutihad digged.

Now, it came to pass that they searched in the

baskets of forage, and Tahuti found the greatleading-staff ; and the Foe in Joppa said : " By thesoul of Menkheperra, show it unto me, for myheart desires to see it." Then Tahuti rose andstood erect, the leading-staff of Menkheperra in hishand. He seized the Foe in Joppa by his robe, and


he cried with a terrible voice ; " Look on me, thouFoe in Joppa, behold the leading-staff of the King

JNl enkheperra, the terrible lion, the son of Sekhet,to whom Amen, his father, gives might andstrength I" Then, raising the staff in his hand, hestruck the Foe in Joppa on the temple, and stretchedhim senseless on the ground. Meanwhile his trustysoldiers had seized and bound the men of the Foewith the fetters which Tahuti had provided, andtheir chief was now thrust into the leathern sack,bound hand and foot in the irons with four rings.

Now, behold, Tahuti caused his men to bring thetwo hundred great earthen vessels which had beenmade, and into each vessel he put a soldier, a

mighty man of valour, with his harness and hisweapons. Then he slung the jars on poles, each jarbetween two stout soldiers, and in the sides of thejars with the soldiers were other fetters and collarsof wood ; and to the men who bare the jars hesaid : " When you have entered the town, youshall break the jars and let your companions out,and you shall seize upon all the dwellers in thetown and put them in irons immediately." ThenTahuti went forth, and spake to the charioteer ofthe Foe in Joppa. " Behold, O miserable one, thy


master is fallen ! Now, therefore, go, say to hiswife, ' Rejoice with me, for Sutekh our god hasgiven into our hands Tahuti and all that is his !'Then shalt thou show to her as the spoil ofthe Egyptians these two hundred earthen vesselswhich are full of men of war, of fetters and ofmanacles."



Then in that great hour the heart of the charioteermelted within him for fear, and he hearkened untothe voice of Tahuti to do according untohis commands. So he went before the Egyptiansoldiers, and cried to the Princess as she stoodupon the wall over the gate : " Rejoice, for we aremasters of Tahuti !" Then were the bars of thegate undone and the soldiers entered bearing the

vessels. And when they were within the citythey brake the jars, and their companions cameforth, and they took possession of the city and allthat were therein, both great and small, and boundthem with fetters of iron and collars of wood.

And when the army of Pharaoh had taken thecity, and Tahuti had refreshed himself, he sent amessage even unto Egypt, to the King Menkhe-perra his master, saying unto him : " Rejoice !Amen, thy father, hath given into thine hands the

. 18

13S WONDER TALES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

Voe in Joppa, ^villl all his subjects and his city.Send, therclbre, thy people to lead them intocaptivity, that thou niayest fill the liouse of thylather Amen Ka, the King of the gods, \n ilh men-servants and maid-servants, who shall be under tliyfeet for ever and ever.'

CHAPTER IX

THE DOOMED PRINCE

Just as "the spacious days of great Elizabeth'were the time when our nation began to waken upto the idea of the great destiny that lay before itas a world-power, and to send its adventurous sonsout into all quarters of the globe, so the early daysof the Eighteenth Dynasty were the time whenEgypt began to believe in her own future as aconquering power. The Egyptian never was either

a great sailor or a great soldier by nature. He didcreditably in both these capacities when circum-stances urged him ; but naturally he was alwayswhat he is to-day a quiet, peaceable, hard-working,�good-natured and submissive being, who will putup with a great deal if he only gets peace andquietness.

But about the year 1500, or thereby, before Christ,it seemed for a while as though the whole characterof the Egyptian race had changed. After being



ia9


kept in suhjection for a lon^r time by the people

known as the llyksos or Desert Prinees, the nativeEgyptians rose in rebellion, and after a long andfierce war drove their oppressors out. Theyfollowed them up across the desert into Syria, andthen for several reigns the whole nation, accustomedto war, and proud of its newly found strength,seemed intent upon making itself ruler of theancient world. First one King and then anotherled the Egyptian armies up through Palestine tothe Eu})hrates, and at last all their efforts came toa head in the successful campaigns of the greatsoldier Thothmes IIL, of whom we have alreadyheard in thestory of Taluiti and the Town of Joppa.

Thothmes conquered and held all the land from theborder of Egypt to the Uiver Euphrates, and beforehe died was by far the greatest and most powerfulKing on earth.

Now, the land north of Palestine, in which theEgyptians carried on these wars, became to thema kind of land of romance. It was to them whatthe golden city of INIanoa and Eldorado were tothe Spaniards and the Enghsh adventurers of theElizabethan period. They called it Naharina the�Land of the Kivers and it Mas the place where any�

THE DOOMED PRINCE 141

kind of adventure might be expected to. happen.So the Prince in this story goes away to the landof Naharina, and remarkable things happen to him,as every Egyptian would naturally expect.

In this story we have what is probably the firstrecorded appearance of our old friends the FairyGodmothers, who ha\e been so hard at workarranging difficulties for the heroes of all the stories

ever since. The Hathors, or Fates, who foretell thePrince's doom are really the genuine article in itsfirst manifestation. The goddesses who made thecrowns for Rud-didet's babies are different, and noton the same footing. They were sent down as anexception, on a special mission ; but these arc theregular practitioners without whose interventionno hero or heroine of any wonder tale has eversince been considered to be adequately startedin life.



Here, again, we get no less than two instancesof the secluded and inaccessible house which holdsthe hero or the heroine ; and one of them has eventhe liberal provision of windows, which has beenpart of the stock plan of such houses from this timeonwards. In fact, as Professor Petrie has pointedout, " it would not be difficult from these papyrus

14a WONDER TALES Ol' THE ANCIENT WOULD

talcs to start an liist(jrical dictionary of tlic elementsof fiction ; a kind of analysis that should he thedeath of niucli of the venerahle stock in trade."

The story itself is found on one of the HarrisPapyri in the Hritish Museum. The papyrus wascomplete when it was discovered, hut it suffered inan explosion which took place near tlie house atAlexandria in which it was stored. It is helieved

that a copy was made of it before the accident ;hut no one knows what has become of it. So inthe meantime we have no authentic informationas to what happened to the Prince after tliecrocodile made its appearance and remarked, " Iam thy doom, following after thee." Variousattempts have been made to provide a satisfactoryending. Among others, one will be found inAndrew Lang's " Brown Fairy Book." The mostelaborate, and perhaps on the whole the mostsatisfactory, is that of Ebers, and the generalouthne of his continuation of the story has beenhere followed, though the conclusion has been

altered, and now owes its chief feature, the recog-nition, by the faithful dog, of the treacherous Princesof Kharu. to a well-known passage in the work ofa greater romancer, the scene of the detection of

THE DOOMED PRINCE 143

Conrad of Montserrat in " The Talisman." Itmust be admitted, however, that all such attemptsto put a conclusion to the work of the early story-teller are more or less imsatisfactory and improb-

able. The chances are, reasoning from what weknow of the Egyptian attitude of mind towardsfate, that the Doomed Prince succumbed at lastto one of his fates probably to a blunder on the�part of his dog ; but only the discovery of a com-plete papyrus can settle the question.

Once upon a time there was a King who had noson to reign after him. He was very sorry becauseof this ; he prayed to the gods to give him a boy,and they answered his prayer. When the Fates



came to appoint the destiny of the little baby, theysaid : " He will die either by the crocodile, or bythe serpent, or by the dog." When those who werewith the child heard this, they went to tell itto His Majesty (life, health, strength !), and HisMajesty (life, health, strength !) was very sad atheart over the doom which threatened his boy.So he caused a house of stone to be built for the

boy on the edge of the desert : it was furnishedwith servants, and with all sorts of good things


IVoiu tlie royal liouscliold, and tlie cliild was neverallowed to F uslRi,^

'/). 236)

OSIRIS AND HIS WICKED BROTHER 233

" O fool and slow of heart !" she said to theQueen, " wherefore didst thou doubt my power ?Hadst thou not snatched him from the cleansingfire, within a brief space of days all that is mortalwould have been purged from him, and he shouldhave been as the gods, ever beautiful, ever young,ever strong ; but now, because of thy folly, he mustknow age and decay and death even as thou."

Then the heart of Queen Athenais became aswater, for she knew that she stood before one ofthe immortal gods. And she called for her husband,King Malkander, and the twain besought Isis toaccept of a gift, even whatever her heart desired ;but she would have none, saving only this that�she commanded them to give her the pillar oftamarisk wood that stood in the presence-chamber.And when it was given unto her, she split it open,and took out the chest with the body of herhusband ; then, wrapping the rest of the pillar infine linen of Egypt, and pouring sweet-smelling oil

upon it, she gave it back to the King and Queen.Now, the King and Queen set it up in a templewhich they built at By bios unto Isis, and, behold,it is there even unto this day, and all menworship it.


So when Lsis had found the body of lier husband,



slic set the chest in a boat, and sailed away fromByblos. And some say that she took with her thehttle Diktys, the son of Queen Athenais, and thathe was lost upon the voyage ; and other some affirmthat her lamentation when she saw the chest was soterrible that the boy's heart failed him for fear, andhe died ; and yet others say that he grew up andreigned in King iNLilkander's stead, and was a good

Khig and a wise, above the wont of Kings, for thatso much of the mortal and sinful part of his naturehad been burned away in the cleansing fires. Andbetween these three stories I cannot discern ; judgeye according as it seems good in your sight.

Queen lsis, therefore, in her ship sailed untoEgypt, and when she came over against the out-going of the river called Phadrus, a cold wind fromoff the river w^nt hard to overturn her ship andlose the chest. And in her anger she cursed theriver, and behold it dried up, and so remains evenunto this day. Then, coming to Egypt to a desert

place, where she believed herself alone, she openedthe chest, and looked upon her dead husband's face,and embraced him and wept bitterly, and the songof lamentation which she made, and which she and


her sister Nephthys sang, behold, it was written instone and set up in the temples of the gods, and allmen in Egypt know it even unto this day. Andwhen she had mourned and wept, she hid the chest

for a season in a place remote and unfrequented,and she herself went into the city of Buto that shemight see how her son Horus fared in the care ofthe lady of Buto, Uatchet.

Now, while she was on her journey came the RedFiend Set, liunting with his evil companions andhis dogs ; for his evil conscience would not sufferhim to rest. And in the moonlight he saw theglitter of the chest which he himself had causedto be made, and knew it. At the sight his heartwas inflamed with rage and terror, and he resolvedto make an end of Osiris ; so, opening the chest,

he tore out the dead body of his brother and rentit into fourteen pieces, and the pieces he scatteredthroughout the length and breadth of the landof Egypt. Then he returned home, believing ofa surety that he had put away the fear of Osirisfrom the earth for ever.

And when Isis was returned from Buto, shefound nothing but the chest where her husbandhad lain, and she knew that her enemy Set had



2% WONDER TALES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

done this thing ; therefore she went forth oncemore on lier journeyings to find the fragmentsof the body of Osiris. And to take her throughthe lakes and canals of the land which the Greeks

call Delta, she made her a boat of papyrus reeds,such as the men of Egypt have used ever since ;but Isis, the skilful in speech and in deed, was thefirst to make it. And when Sebek, the crocodilegod of the land which the outlandish desert-folkcall Fayum, saw the goddess in her skiff, he gavecommandment unto his crocodiles in all the watersof Egypt not to do her harm. And, even unto thisday, the crocodiles of the rivxr of Egypt do noharm to any who journey in papyrus boats, whetherit be that they fear the wrath of Isis, or that theystill hearken unto the command of Sebek andhonour the skiff which once carried the goddess.

So Queen Isis went throughout all the land ofEgypt, and wherever she found a part of herhusband's body, she buried it and built a shrine.And thus it is, as some say, that there are in Egyptso many sepulchres of Osiris.

But other some aver, and the truth is with them,that she did not bury the fragments of the body,but only reared a shrine where each one was found.


But, having so deceived her enemy, she took thefragments with her, and when she had gatheredthem all together, she besought the great god Ra ;and the god heard her prayer, and he sent downfrom heaven Anubis, the fourth of his sons, whosehead is the head of a jackal, and who guides thedead through the ways of the Shadow-World.And Anubis gathered together the members of Osirisand united them as they were at the first. Andhe wrapped the body in swathings of fine linen ofEgypt ; and unto this day men do so unto theirdead in the land of Egypt, calling them even by

the name of Osiris. But though Anubis had donethis unto the body of the god, Osiris remained coldand dead. Then came Isis, and waved her cunninghands over him, and wrought her spells ; and, be-hold, the breath of life came back into his nostrils,and he bestirred himself, and arose from the dead.

Yet because he had been dead and was aliveagain, the Council of the Gods gave judgment thathe should not return to live as an earthly Kingamong men, but tliat he should reign as King and



judge of all the dead in the Under- World, givingjustice unto all men according to the deeds donein the body. So Osiris dwelleth even now in the


ILill of the Twofold Trutli, and all men who passout of this world into the other must needs appearbefore his judgment-seat. There their deeds arejudged, and their hearts are weighed. They whohave done evil are condemned and perish in thejaws of the Devourer of the L^njustified ; but theywho have done righteously are approved, and passinto the Fields of Rest, where is everlasting peaceand abiding happiness.

But as for Set, the Red Fiend, he endures indefeat and misery. For when Horus the son ofOsiris was grown and came to man's estate, he

challenged the murderer of his father ; and thoughSet used all his arts and deceits he was overthrownand vanquished. Rut the end is not yet ; for Setis of the immortals and cannot be abidingly slainso long as men on earth are feeble and foolish.Therefore the fight goes on day by day : and Set,ever overthrown, ever rises from his overthrow andrenews the strife. But in the fulness of the timeHorus shall one day overthrow him utterly ; andin that day Osiris shall return once more as Kingto this earth, and his kingdom shall be righteousnessand peace.

CHAPTER XV

THE WANDERINGS OF ISIS

This is one of the many stories that belong to thegreat legend of Osiris. There must have beenothers which have not come down to us, forthere are references in many Egyptian writings toparts of the adventures of Isis and Horus, of whichwe know nothing ; but what we have is enough toshow us that Plutarch was not only romancing

w^hen he told us the story of Isis and Osiris, butwas really repeating what had been told to himself.Shortly before the coming of Christ Isis became byfar the most popular of all goddesses, not only inher own land, but all through the Roman Empire.The story of the persecuted mother, and her faithfullove to her son seemed to find an echo in men'shearts everywhere. The following story describessome of the adventures of Isis after the enemySet had slain Osiris, and was trying to usurphis brother's kingdom and make himself master



a39


of Egypt. It is written in hieroglyphics upon a

hirge stone pilhir which was made about fourhundred years before Christ for an Egyptianpriest. The pillar was dug up at Alexandria in1828, and was presented by the ruler of PLgypt,Mehemet Ali Pasha, to the Austrian statesmanPrince Metternich. In the inscription the goddessherself is supposed to be speaking.

" I am I sis, the Great Goddess, the Lady ofINlagic, to whom belong words of power. Now, itbefell that when the Evil One, the Red God Set,had slain his twin-brother, my husband Osiris, byguile, he seized upon me, and shut me up in prison

that there might be none to stand between himand the lordship of Egypt. But there came untome in the house where Set had placed me the greatgod Thoth, who is the Prince of Truth andWisdom both in Heaven and on Earth, and hespake unto me saying : ' Hearken unto me, Ogoddess I sis ! It is a good thing to hearken, for hewho fvill be guided shall live. Hide thyself withthy child which shall be born unto thee, and thesethings shall happen unto him : He shall growand flourish in his body, and strength of every kind

ISIS AND HER SKVE.X GUARDIAN SCORPIONS.

'.p. 243)

THE WANDERINGS OF ISIS 241

shall be found in him. Yea, he shall sit upon the

throne of his father, and he shall hold the exalteddignity of '* Lord of the Two Lands.'"

" Then I escaped from the dwelling in which myevil brother Set had placed me. At evening I lefthis house, and, behold, there journeyed with meSeven Scorpions, that were to travel with me as myguard, and to sting with their stings in my defence.Behind me came two of them, Tefen and Befen,on my right hand came INlestet, and on my lefthand, JNIestetef, and three went before my face to



prepare the way before me, and their names werePetet, Thetet, and Maatet. And to these myguards I spake, charging them straitly : ' Salute noone, neither make acquaintance with any ; speak tono Red Fiend, harm no child nor helpless creature,and be diligent to keep your eyes on the groundthat ye may show me the way !'

" So they led me through the land, until at lastthey brought me to Pa-sui, the town of theSacred Sandals, which is at the head of the landof the papyrus swamps. For here the river nolonger runs in a narrow bed, but wanders hitherand thither across the land, and the people of theland from here even unto the Great Green Sea in

31


the north are all marshmen, who are scorned bythe people of the south. Tlicn I arrived at Teb,and came to a part of the town where womendwelt. And as I journeyed along the road, lookingfor a place wherein to hide my head for the night,for I was weary and footsore, a certain woman ofrank, whose name was Usert, saw me ; but herheart was afraid because of the Seven Scorpionsthat were with me, and she shut her door inmy face.

" Then the Seven Scorpions took counsel together

as to what should be done unto this woman for herhardness of heart, and they shot out all their poisonon the tail of the scorpion Tefen, so that his stingshould have sevenfold venom in it. But a peasantwoman named Taha opened her door unto me, andinto the house of this wôman of low degree I went,and laid me down there and rested. But while Irested, the scorpion Tefen crawled in under the doorof the house of the woman Usert, who had shuther door against me, and stung her son. And whenshe rose at his cry, behold, her house was on fire.There was no water to put it out, for it was notthe time of the inundation ; but a great marvel

happened. The heaven grew black with clouds, and


the sky sent down water, so that the fire wasquenched. Yet the heart of the lady Usert washeavy within her, and her sadness was great uponher, for her child lay in pain, and she knew notwhether he would live or die ; and she ran through



the streets crying with a loud voice for help, butnone hearkened unto her, for all were in great fearbecause of the Seven Scorpions, Hut I heard thevoice of her weeping, and it repented nie of theevil for the child's sake, and I wished the innocentone who had done me no liarm to live again. SoI cried aloud to her, saying : * Come to me ! Cometo me ! There is life in my words. I am a woman

well known for my skill to heal. I can drive outthe devil of death by a spell which my fathertaught me ; for I am his daughter and his beloved.'" Then I came to where the child lay, still andcold as the dead ; and when I beheld him I laidmy hands upon him and I spake this spell : ' Opoison of Tefen, come forth, fall on the ground, gono farther. O poison of Befen, come forth, fall onthe ground. For I am Isis the goddess, the ladyof words of power. I am the weaver of spells,cunning to utter magic words. Hearken unto me,every reptile that stingeth, and let your venom fall


upon the ground. Poison of Mestet go no farther.Poison of Mestetef, rise not up in his body. Poisonof Petet and Thetet, enter not his body. Poisonof Maatet, fall upon the ground. Do not my wordsrule to the utmost limit of the night ? Unto youI speak, O ye scorpions. For I am alone and insorrow, and wherefore should our names be madeto stink throughout all the nomes of the land ofEgypt ? The child shall live ! The poison shall

die ! For my child Horus, that shall be, shall besaved through his mother I sis, and he who isstricken shall likewise be saved.'

" Then the child was restored, strong and wellas before, and the fire in the house of Usert wasextinguished, and the rain from heaven ceased.And the lady Usert repented and was ashamedbecause she had shut her door against me ; and shebrought to the house of Taha, the woman of lowdegree, gifts many and precious, and laid them atmy feet. For I am the lady Isis, a great goddess,mistress of words of power, and mighty in word

and in deed.

" Now I, Isis, bore my son Horus, the son ofOsiris, in the papyrus-swamps w^here the greatriver spreads out over the land. And I rejoiced


greatly over my son, because now I knew that the



avenger of his father had appeared, and that theRed Fiend Set should not have dominion overthe land. 1 hid him, and 1 kept him secretly,for I was afraid of the Red Fiend. Then I wentforth to the town of Am, and the people receivedme and did homage unto me, for they knew thegreatness of my power, and were afraid. So whenI had spent the day in gathering food for the child,

I returned, and took Horus into my arms. But,behold, I found him lifeless, my beautiful Horus,my golden one, my fatherless child ! His tears andthe foam on his hps had bedewed the ground, hisbody was relaxed, and liis heart did not beat.

" Then 1 shrieked and made lamentation : 'Myfather is in the Under- World, and my mother in therealms of the dead, and my husband lies in hiscoffin. None have I to answer for me or to avengeme on mine adversary. I will call unto some one ofthe sons of men, if haply their hearts will turn untome.' So I called unto the marshmen, and their

hearts turned at once unto me. The people cameforth out of their houses, and hastened to me atmy call. They lamented for the greatness of mysorrow, but none of them could help me or give


me back my son. There came a woman to me,the wisest and most experienced of the town. Shesaid unto me : ' This cannot be the work of theRed Fiend, for Set does not come into this province,

he docs not wander through the huid of Khemmis.JSIay it not be tliat a scorpion hath stung him ?'

'* Then 1 laid my nose close to tlie mouth of thechild, and I smelled the smell of the poison. Irecognized the sickness of my son, the heir of thegods, and knew that he had been poisoned. I tookhim swiftly in my arms, and my cry rang evenunto heaven : ' Horus is stung, O Great God Ra.Horus is stung, the inheritor of thy heritage !'Then came my sister Nephtliys weeping, and herlamentations echoed through the swamps, and withher came Selkis, the scorpion goddess. And she

said : ' What has happened ? What has happened ?Cry unto heaven, and the Sun will stop even inthe mid-firmament, and the Boat of Ra will nottravel across the sky so long as Horus is dead.'

" Then 1 made my voice reach unto heaven, andmy cry came even unto the Bark of Eternity.Behold, in that hour the sun stood still in the mid-firmament, and moved not from his place. Andout of the Bark of Eternity came Thoth, bringing




his magic with him, and a great commission fromRa, and thus he spake : ' AVhat is the matter ?What is the matter, O Isis, thou glorious goddesswith the skilful tongue ? Surely nothing evil hath

happened to the child Horus ? Lo I come fromthe Bark of the Sun, from his place of yesterday ;for darkness hath come on, and light hath iied,until Horus is healed and given back to his motherIsis. Verily the defender of Horus is the Sun,who lightens both lands with his beaming eyes, andis the protector of the suffering. Verily the de-fender of Horus is the Ancient of Days who is inthe mid-heaven, who gives commands to all whoare there or elsewhere, and is the protector of thesuffering. The ship of the Sun stands still, andthe Sun moves not from his place of yesterdayuntil Horus is made whole once more, and the

sufferer is restored to his mother.'

" So Thoth, the great god, the Lord of Truthand of Wisdom, stood over the child Horus andspake his words of power on this wise : ' Wake up,O Horus. Thy defence is sure. Rejoice the heartof thy mother Isis. Let your hearts be glad, allye that dwell in the heavens, for Horus, the avengerof his father, shall cause the poison to retreat. The


word in the mouth of Ha shjill run swiftly, and thetongue of the Great God shall triumph. Now theHark of Ra standeth still and inoNttli not. and theSun's disc is in the place where it was yesterday,to heal Horus for his mother Isis. Come to earth ;draw near, O ship of Ra, and ye mariners of Ra !Make the ship of Ra to come hither to heal Ilorusfor his mother Isis. Lo 1, even I, am Thoth, thefirst-born son, the son of Ra ! The company of thegods have commanded me to heal Horus for hismother Isis. Hchold the poison is its own destruc-tion ; it is destroyed because it smote the strong

one. O ye gods, your temples are safe, for Horusliveth for his mother.' Then my son was givenback to me alive and well, and the great god Thothreturned to the Bark of Eternity, and the Harksailed on in heaven, and there was great joy amongall the gods from the one end of heaven even untothe other. Now doth Horus my son grow strongin the town of Buto among the marshes ; and inthe fulness of the time he shall fight the Red FiendSet, and overthrow him, and avenge me and Osirishis father upon our adversary."



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12863889 Wonder Tales of the Ancient World